


yourself and others

by s_t_c_s



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Coitus Interruptus, Dirty Talk, F/F, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Insomnia, Kissing, Lingerie, Making Out, Masturbation, Mentions of Gun Violence, Mentions of Major Character Death, Mentions of Violence, Mentions of pornography, Online Dating, Oral Sex, Phone Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smoking, Some angst, Spooning, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, brief ghost mention, brief vampire mentions, brief zombie mention, but not like that, but not really, definite hints of bi Beth Boland, discussion of open relationships, extremely brief bdsm implication, extremely brief mention of group sex, idiots who don't know how to play twenty questions, idiots who think sex is competitive, liberal use of the f word, mention of past recreational drug use, mentions of Beth/Original Male Characters, sex tape mention, sexting mention, substance abuse as a coping mechanism, terrible awkward flirting, unfortunate cupid imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-04-07 10:41:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 46,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19083376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_t_c_s/pseuds/s_t_c_s
Summary: One year on: a guilty, grieving Beth and a chance encounter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this started off as a one-shot that kinda spiralled (!)
> 
> The mature rating is for the Beth/Rio stuff, and also probs the themes overall. It got a tad angsty in places (I mean they're both lunatics, what do you expect) and I was trying to keep it broadly true to show in terms of tone.
> 
> There's some background Stan/Ruby and Amber/OFC relationship stuff.

She’d been jumpy for _months_ afterwards.

 

Some of the rest of it, the unstoppable shaking and sobbing? That came and went fairly fast.

 

Beth’d been through some _shit_ in her life _,_ okay, she could bite down on the obvious signs of grief and trauma if she needed to. Forcing herself to grin and bear life was pretty much old hat at this point.

 

The instant terror that any noise, any movement could apparently set off though… that stuff had all been devastatingly new. She really did stop sleeping entirely for a couple of weeks back there. Snatching unsatisfying “naps” only when her exhausted body forced her to do so by essentially collapsing, like some kind of crazed insomniac. Whenever she woke from one of those short sessions it was like she was rising from the dead, like a robot switched back on, a drowned woman struggling back to the surface. There were no dreams to rouse from, just a sudden gasping emergence from a blank black nothingness.

 

Annie’d joked that at least with her looking as awful as she did – and she really did, eyes hollow, a sickly pallor on her skin – at least Dean wasn’t going to try to worm his way back in to her life or her bed. Beth’d missed the look that Ruby must’ve shot her sister then but she saw the chagrin taking over Annie’s features. Beth wanted to tell her it didn’t matter, she wasn’t upset by her saying that. Hadn’t bothered though.

 

But it had been almost a full year now and she was slowly starting to accept and adapt to her new life. Every creak of a floorboard, every backfiring car, every sudden movement she only caught in her peripheral… well, if sometimes those still caused her to let out a yelp or tense her shoulders at least her mouth wasn’t always full of bile, her fists weren’t always raised, her eyes weren’t always screwed shut in terror along with it.

 

She’d been attending self-defence classes. She’d started swimming again. Been baking fake money of her own – and it was good stuff. Maybe she didn’t quite feel in control of her life, but she didn’t feel like fate’s bitch being buffeted mindlessly by the universe any more either.

 

Still though, her breath would catch whenever she saw a lean build with cropped dark hair from the back in a crowd, butterflies filled her stomach at the glimpse of a certain type of dark beanie from a distance, anguish grasped her if she heard a bass pitch of rumbling speech shivering past her.

 

*

 

And, yeah, okay. So she’d thought about the possibility of him somehow being alive in the aftermath, of course she had. Hope and trepidation had filled her mind at the notion. Hot on the tails of Boomer’s reappearance and with Turner cleaning up her mess… a small part of her brain had wondered.

 

But Beth had dealt with plenty of grief and loss. Fantasising about someone somehow making it through death was just that, a fantasy. Part of the process. She’d put three bullets in his chest and that wasn’t exactly something that someone could just get up and walk away from.

 

There’d been a week or so after it’d first happened where she’d just driven around their old haunts in a daze, the loft understandably struck from that list. She’d had no clear idea what, if anything, she was searching for, but a fierce need to remain in motion, to enact these pilgrimages had possessed her.

 

Some desperate part of her had led her near the house she’d seen him collect his son from once, that fateful day she’d spent following him around. She’d almost had the guts to get out and go knock on the door. To… what? Offer to help the kid grieve? Ask about funeral arrangements so she could send flowers? Hand over the key to the storage without a word? Bare her soul and beg for forgiveness? Some rare force of sanity, not something she had in abundance in those days, had thankfully made her drive away from there and never return.

 

Still there’d been _days_ of her shuffling between cafes, parks, the storage units, even the warehouses as if she were a bus driver with a set route. Remembered dialling his number again and again, leaving voicemail after voicemail with the same obsessive clarity. Those people at the addiction meetings she’d briefly frequented would probably have something to say about behaviour like that, she’d thought wryly. She considered going back to those meetings. Did no such thing.

 

Annie and Ruby had wanted to be with her as much as possible during that time, had wanted to comfort her, to help her. The more she promised them that she was fine, the less they believed her. So she learnt to stop saying it. Plastered on a certain appropriately beleaguered face and tone of voice and said that she just wanted to be alone. If they didn’t understand that they at least could try to respect it and let her duck them, mostly. Always before she’d wanted them lying with her – in beds, on sofas, collapsed upon the floor – for comfort in her darkest times.

 

It’s not that she didn’t crave their company, the solace they longed to give her. But she couldn’t stand the idea of discussing what had happened with them. It wasn’t simply that she’d killed someone – and she _had_ killed someone, it still didn’t quite compute. She’d killed her – well, even if she couldn’t quite name what he’d been to her, they’d _seen it_ for god’s sake. Seen her quietly giddy over sleeping with him, jealous when they’d spied him hugging another woman, desperately calling him those millions of times when he wouldn’t reply. What would they think of her if they truly understood what had happened? She already had to feel it about herself, seeing that reflected in their eyes too would’ve ended her, she was certain of that.

 

She’d pushed through that now, more or less. They’d stopped watching her with those twin guarded, concerned expressions. They were watchful yet though. Even without her being forthcoming they’d probably gathered enough.

 

*

 

Dean had taken the kids to his mother’s that first week. Beth’d assured him that she’d be fine alone, surprised but endlessly thankful that he’d given in. She’d needed silence more than anything. She still wasn’t sure if he understood what had happened, his observation skills never exactly sharp.

 

In that empty house she’d spent one glorious 24 hour period frenetically masturbating, determinedly picturing nothing and no one. But after the blissful oblivion of shock, guilt had settled in to her bones.

 

After her obsessive whirlwind of visits to old haunts she hadn’t been able to bring herself to return to most of them since. She’d stuffed the key to the storage locker into a shoe box and hidden that in the garage.

 

Even a year on she’d wanted to baulk at having to head to an upscale patisserie just because it was near one of their cafes. But Annie couldn’t pick up the cake for Sadie’s birthday party and Beth was trying so hard to convince her sister, to convince everyone, that she _really was fine_ now. So she’d forced herself to boss up and head on over. She was _proud_ at her mastery of her emotions.

 

There was a small counter right at the back that dealt with orders for parties, away from the bustle, where she was happily chatting about icing with the young guy serving her who didn’t look that much older than Kenny.

 

So when she heard a whisper of a rumble saying something she couldn’t quite catch, she turned around on instinct. It was a habit now, she’d see or hear something small that took her back to him, assure her lizard brain that couldn’t quite seem to understand that it couldn’t be him because _she’d killed him_ and go on with her day.

 

She was ready, intellectually, to turn back to the boy but her body was refusing to accommodate that because her eyes were drinking _him_ in. Her heart somersaulted and dove somewhere into the middle of her intestines. Dimly she noticed that a waitress, blushing, seemed to be in the middle of showing him to a table and he’d been thanking her or something and. He was here. Standing. Alive.

 

Beth’s body was apparently a tricksy disobedient thing this morning because without her command or permission it had walked her over to him and apparently her eyes were leaking tears unbidden because she seemed to be soaking his shirt with them, her face on his chest, her arms creeping around his waist.

 

She distantly heard the waitress, disconcerted, say, “Ummm, should I get another chair for your friend?”.

 

Rio didn’t say anything, and he didn’t move to peel her off of him either but she thought she felt his body slightly relax. He must’ve nodded or something because the next thing she properly understood was that he was firmly pushing her into a seat.

 

He dropped into the other chair, maintaining his distance. Beth glanced vaguely at the waitress who she could see fiddling out of the corner of her eye, and tried to offer her a small smile. The waitress – her name tag said Jocelyn, Beth somehow managed to take in – looked extremely uncomfortable and fled, muttering about being back to take their order shortly.

 

Beth’s brain started to catch up with her. The standard refrain of _he’s dead, you killed him_ was still playing on a loop except she was really having to acknowledge that she might not have been as right about that as she’d thought. Not unless her grip on reality had finally cracked wide open. She was still pretty sure she’d shot him and left him for dead though, that wasn’t something she was likely to forget. Which meant that… which meant that he must be _pissed_.

 

Beth sniffled and rubbed at her eyes a little. She tried to look at him properly, to assess him. But her mind was racing and she kept finding herself glancing away. His face didn’t seem hard and angry, more politely blank and maybe a touch bemused. Looking at him _hurt_ , she could see lights dancing behind her eyes like that time one of Ruby’s brothers had dared her to stare into a flashlight for minutes on end.

 

Well, she thought, he probably wasn’t going to kill her or ream her out here, in public. Probably. She cast around wildly for something to say, drawing a blank. Embarrassment, guilt and panic were clawing their way through her, holding her hostage.

 

“Are we?” she blurted out desperately, voice woefully small.

 

He didn’t respond verbally but raised one perfect eyebrow a teeny distance and gestured vaguely with one hand in a way that she considered could possibly be encouraging.

 

“ _Are_ we friends?” she asked, inwardly cursing herself for how much more childish it sounded aloud.

 

A calculating grin, almost but not quite familiar, widened his mouth. She noted absently that it didn’t move anywhere up near his eyes.

 

“I dunno _sweetheart_ -”, and it was like an echo of how he used to talk to her, too saccharine, too light, “all your friends see you naked?”

 

“Yeah.” she answered carelessly, quickly. It was true, they had. His grin hadn’t moved but his eyes narrowed slightly. She thought about how few people she’d really class as her friends. Wondered if that was the same for him too.

 

His voice dipped even lower as he pushed closer to her, “they all been inside you?” he asked.

 

“Well,” she said, exceptionally carefully, one hand playing with the spine of a menu as she wondered if the waitress was ever actually coming back or if she’d been scared off for good, “there’s four little people I spend a lot of time with that started out that way.”

 

She managed to raise her eyes to meet his again for a couple of moments, and then she was back to staring at her hand on the menu. She didn’t know why she was playing this game with him except… except that she’d thought for so long that she’d never be playing any kind of game with him again.

 

She caught the tiny flicker of an eyeroll, and some part of her thrilled because that at least was familiar, that kindled a tiny sliver of hope. Maybe she could somehow annoy him out of hating her?

 

“Fine,” he sighed, and pushed even further into her space, “they all let you fuck their face?”.

 

She flushed, and angered at her body for betraying her harder than she had since she’d been a teenager, and let out a flat: “no”.

 

“S’pose that’d be a fairly short list.” He said, satisfied, amused.

 

“I’m divorced now.” she said, proudly. Because it was true, because maybe it was an answer.

 

He offered her a polite, disinterested smile, pulling back a little. And then, “You shoot all your friends in the chest?”

 

A small sound escaped her throat and abruptly the walls were closing in and she wasn’t sure if she was breathing wrong or if she was sobbing again but in some mostly far off way she realised that he was standing again and _leaving_ and she didn’t exactly know what she wanted the outcome of this encounter to be but she knew that she didn’t want him to come back from the dead just to slip through her fingers.

 

So all of a sudden she was digging out her wallet to dump some bills, some of her recent work, on the table (the poor waitress definitely deserved something for dealing with a weepy Beth who then chased off a paying customer). She made what she hoped was an apologetic gesture and face to the cake guy behind the counter, and then she was taking off after Rio.

 

His stride was still longer than hers of course but was she imagining that his pace was slower? Not slow enough anyway, he was almost at his car. “R- Christopher? Wait! Just hold on a sec!” she called out to him.

 

Even from behind she could clock him sighing his annoyance. He didn’t say anything and he didn’t turn to face her, but he’d stopped and she was grateful.

 

She gulped a large breath. “Look I’m not going to keep bothering you. I’m not going to try to insert myself in your life or your business again. I’m not going to break into your house or follow you-”

 

He snorted derisively at that, breaking her train of thought and she, well, she could see the irony of her promising not to follow him around as she rushed after him but.

 

“I’m just sorry, ok?” she added, miserably. “I’m sorry about what happened. I fucked up. I didn’t mean for-” she broke off, looking around. “I didn’t mean for _that_. And I’m glad that, uh, that didn’t happen?” She was smiling now, a little, didn’t mean to be but the knowledge that he was alive was slowly unfurling, filling her entirely as she struggled to give voice to it.

 

“And if there’s anything I can ever do to, you know, to make it up to you, you just let me know?” And just as she was congratulating herself for formulating a peaceful overture without thrusting herself into any of his business a shiver of fear worked its way down her spine as she considered what she could be laying herself open to – drug muling? Murder? Working off an impossible debt in his monopoly money again…?

 

He turned to look at her again with that unreadable expression on his face, eyes scrutinising. His body language seemed a little impatient, but that wasn’t unusual for him. All coiled kinetic energy.

 

“Honestly? I don’t give a fuck what you do. Just stay the hell away from me.”

 

Before Beth had a chance to process that he was in his car and peeling away, her view of that somewhat obscured by the tears that were aggressively forcing themselves from her eyes yet again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Right now, though, well… Right now she was reeling from running into the ex-lover she thought she’d killed. Throw in the fact that she had wept all over said ex-lover and then had been told, in truly no uncertain terms, to leave him alone.
> 
> Yeah, Beth fucking needed a drink.

See, she’d _really_ been trying not to drink too much.

 

Those first few days after the… _debacle_? It had been anything goes when it came to numbing tools. Booze, old prescription pain killers, gripping the meat of her thighs or sides so tight black spots started to cloud her vision.

 

But picking herself up and putting her pieces back together (albeit perhaps not in quite the same configuration)? That required a tight control. And unfortunately the sweet oblivion of drunkenness wasn’t exactly where control’s grip resided.

 

Right now, though, well… Right now she was reeling from running into the ex-lover she thought she’d killed. Throw in the fact that she had wept all over said ex-lover and then had been told, in truly no uncertain terms, to leave him alone.

 

Yeah, Beth _fucking_ needed a drink.

 

*

 

She rubbed haphazardly at her eyes with the back of her left hand as she strode, a little dazed, down the street. The tears had stopped almost as abruptly as they’d begun. This notion of a calming libation appeared in her mind’s eye with a wonderfully distracting clarity. Having something, anything, else to focus on felt like a precious gift right now.

 

The first bar she stumbled upon was open, though it was early, still only 10ish. She didn’t pause to consider whether this was unusual, or even a sign of some kind from the universe, merely pushed her way in, inwardly oozing gratitude.

 

It was kind of dive-y inside, not exactly to her usual tastes, but she absolutely didn’t care right now. When the lone bartender turned his languid, almost hostile, attention to her she ordered a screwdriver, her preference for bourbon having dissipated without resurfacing a while ago. A half-formed quip about her choice being a breakfast drink, because of the OJ, died on her tongue – this guy clearly didn’t care if she, or anyone, was drinking before noon. He’d clearly seen it all, including red-eyed housewives drowning their morning sorrows, and probably would again. The man hardly seemed inclined to bat even a single eyelash.

 

She settled into her seat at the bar, gulping at her cocktail. Her eyes focussed mostly on a beer mat near her while she tried to find her breath. Beth couldn’t help her thoughts from drifting to another bar she’d drunk in too early though. Couldn’t help comparing either – both the two locations and the woman she’d been versus the one she was now.

 

*

 

She’d hit up that place. Their place. His place. Had included it in her weird frantic circuit, visiting the scenes of their greatest hits. Or at least she’d tried to – when she’d arrived it’d been closed for business. She’d been toying with the idea of having a drink there on her way over, a thought pressing at the back of her mind, too agonising to pull to the forefront of her thoughts. The chains on the door and the giant closed sign had at least made that decision for her.

 

Beth’d managed to steer clear of that entire block almost entirely since but a few months back an annoying traffic diversion had practically forced her into a route directly passing _that_ bar. She’d intended to studiously avoid looking at it but out of the corner of one mischievous, uncooperative eye had caught that it was gone, had changed, was now some chain pub and grill. It must have changed owners and -

 

It was only now that she was starting to wonder… had it actually been _his_ bar? If he owned it that’d explain why he was there so frequently and at such random hours, after all. And was that why it had been closed and later sold then? But no- that didn’t quite make sense because, and here her brain was scrambling to keep up and play that merry game of connect-the-dots, _he wasn’t dead_. Not unless she’d imagined their very recent run-in! While her subconscious might well have conjured up a vision of Rio to torment her, she somehow doubted that the disturbed waitress, her own embarrassing ugly-crying, or this frankly terrible establishment were anything but mundane reality. So -

 

“Come here often?” a voice broke into her thoughts.

 

Its owner was one of the other patrons who she’d been actively ignoring. He looked around 50 or so, a little salt breaking up his dark hair, though it wasn’t so easy to gauge age in the forgivingly dim light.

 

Beth mostly wanted to laugh at the cheesy line but attempted to rein in her amusement, not only because she feared it’d make her seem more approachable (a notion that wearied her immediately) but also because she worried that if she started she might never stop. Hysteria was welling within her, she could feel the capacity to laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh ballooning somewhere around her lungs – and that could only end in tears, one way or another.

 

Instead, she shot the man a death glare and allowed a noise, not entirely unlike a snarl, to escape her throat. It seemed to do the job because, “Never mind then,” he muttered, eyes wide, swivelling back away.

 

She downed the rest of her drinks, left some more of her bills on the counter (including a too-generous tip) and hurried out of there, viciously hoping to never return. She had a cake to collect.

 

*

 

She didn’t tell it all to Annie and Ruby for a couple of days, worry still ticking its tendrils through her thinking.

 

Once she’d plucked up the courage however, they were instantly sympathetic. Beth communicated as much as she could, allowing for the barriers of time and language and perception, and having them _so_ back onside was immediately addicting. It was like receiving oxygen again after having been starved of it. She’d felt as if she were speaking to them from behind glass for unbearably long.

 

Eventually though, they moved on to safety concerns.

 

“Do you think he’s going to come after you?” Ruby almost-whispered.

 

Beth shrugged, dejectedly. Sure, the thought had crossed her mind but all that she knew was that she didn’t really know.

 

“I mean – he knows where you live, right?” hazarded Annie. “But if he’s been alive this whole time - it’s not like he forgot he knew that? So maybe if he was going to try something he would’ve done it already…?” her brows pressed up to her hairline.

 

Beth’d hardly had time to process that before Ruby interjected with, “What do you mean _if_ he’s been alive this whole time?! He’s obviously been alive _the_ _whole time_ , Annie! He’s not some kind of… recently revived zombie!”

 

Annie merely shrugged in response, palms wide.

 

“He’s not a zombie,” Beth didn’t-quite-snap. And then, remembering the intense surreality of her Rio run-in added with a tiny frown, “I’m _almost_ certain.”

 

“Well what do you want to... _do_?” asked Ruby, a little helpless.

 

“Do?” repeated Beth, entirely at a loss.

 

“Sweetie, I’m sure you’re glad he’s not dead,” Ruby continued, “not least because that means you didn’t kill him.”

 

And Beth – Beth honestly wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. She’d spent the better part of a year trying to force herself to find peace with this new identity she’d carved for herself – that of a murderer. That didn’t feel like something she could just shrug off and return from. It felt more like a worn-in, familiar scarf settled around her shoulders now. And besides – just because he hadn’t died, was she really any less culpable? Miraculous return aside, she’d still shot him three times and left him to bleed to death.

 

“There’s a dangerous man out there who’s gotta be...not that happy with you?” Ruby said mildly. Annie snorted at that delicate description. “You should think about how to protect yourself. Have you thought about going to the police?”

 

“Oh, hell no sister! We are not going down _that_ route again!” Annie said immediately, “Remember the time we tried to turn him in?”

 

Ruby nodded in grim assent, “Yeah okay – we’d need to be smart, subtle.”

 

“And besides!” continued Annie, as if she hadn’t heard her friend. “It’s not like Beth can tell the po-po that she pissed off her former crime-boss by almost killing him. I mean, _hello_!”

 

“Yeah, hello!” replied Ruby, “That’s why I’m saying it’s gotta be smart! And subtle!” Then, screwing her nose up in disgust she asked Beth, “Maybe if you spoke to Turner…?”

 

And there was a thought. _Turner_. She’d left him with Rio that night. And she’d seen him since – only the once, but still. Why hadn’t Turner told her that Rio was still alive?! He’d sat here in her kitchen advising her to walk the straight and narrow… had he known? Surely he must have done!

 

“Well maybe if Beth wasn’t such a bad shot-” Annie was saying.

 

“Hey, I’m an excellent shot!” Beth interrupted, without thinking, voice too loud. The other two both turned to look at her. _Ugh_. This was no use – she was so used to being alone now that it was getting hard to think properly amidst all this chatter.

 

“Listen, I’ll be fine. I _am_ fine,” she said placatingly.

 

Annie’s mouth hung open. “You absolutely are not!” she said, jabbing an accusatory finger at Beth, but softened up almost immediately. “And you absolutely aren’t expected to be! Besides,” she continued with a sidelong glance at Ruby, “it’s not just you I’m worried about. Homeboy knows about us, remember?” she gestured wildly between herself and Ruby. “If I was trying to fuck you up, I’d go after someone you loved first.”

 

Ruby nodded slowly, “Yeah,” she added, “best case scenario might be Dean getting shot again.”

 

“Damn!” mused Annie. Then, “What, too soon?” she asked, seeing Beth’s stoic face.

 

“Hmm?” said Beth. “Oh, no. Sorry – just thinking.” She drifted back into what they were saying. She didn’t want Dean getting hurt again, not deep down. He was the father of her kids, after all, and while they were still finding their feet at the co-parenting business things were slowly getting better there.

 

She somehow doubted that Rio would try to come at her via Dean again though. Not to mention that she’d let slip about the divorce to him.

 

“Do you think we could talk about literally anything else?” Beth begged.

 

“Sure, babe,” Ruby readily agreed, taking her hand. Beth turned a thankful smile her way.

 

Annie was a little tougher. “Okay Beth, _for now_ ,” she conceded, “but you can’t just avoid this forever. It could become, y’know, a _situation_.”

 

Beth nodded, fingers pinching at the bridge of her nose. Yes, he’d told her to stay away, acted like he wanted nothing to do with her. Hell, he’d behaved like it had just been a chance meeting. But. People could say and do things they didn’t mean. And if she knew one thing about Rio, and maybe it was the only thing she did truly know about him, it was his capacity for unpredictability. Sweet and flirting one moment, trying to taunt her into murdering an FBI agent the next. Dead one minute, then you stopped paying attention and suddenly there he was, alive.

 

She shook her head, trying to make these noisy ideas flit away.

 

“Besides,” Annie said loudly, obviously taking pity on her, “now isn’t a good time for situations. We’re trying to get a new business together, remember? You’re the one who said it was too risky to keep washing the cash through Amber, yes?”

 

“Ugh, _Amber,_ ” Ruby broke in.

 

“I don’t know, she’s starting to grown on me!” Beth said decisively.

 

“Seriously??” yelped Ruby. “Beth, she’s a _moron_!”

 

“And, oh yeah, don’t forget the part where she boned your husband!” Annie chimed in.

 

“Ex-husband,” Beth corrected coolly, automatically.

 

“Er – not at the time!” Annie pushed, motivated by some perennial craving for the last word.

 

“Yeah well, that’s way more on him,” argued Ruby. “That teenybopper didn’t owe Beth like Dean did.”

 

Annie nodded mutely.

 

“ _Plus_ ,” added Beth, “he was her _boss_. She was a naïve little girl and I’m sure he made her all kind of promises. And he was in a position of power over her and-”

 

 _Oh_. They were both staring at her _like that_ again – something between pity and fear, with a healthy dose of concern thrown in. She wanted to scream. Wanted to tell them that that wasn’t what she meant, that it hadn’t been like that between her and Rio. Wanted to laugh at the idea of herself as some innocent ingénue, or of Rio working up enough words to make her pretty false promises, or of any of their _encounters_ being initiated by anything other than her very obvious longing. But it was too difficult, too much, somehow, still, way too _personal_.

 

And maybe, well, maybe it hadn’t been fucked up in _that_ way but their dance had blurred the lines between power and lust and business and pleasure.

 

So she settled on merely starting to tidy up a little, vaguely hoping that her flush wasn’t too obvious.

 

The conversation moved on to safer topics after that.

 

*

 

Nevertheless, Beth wasn’t able to switch her brain off over the next few days.

 

It was turning over in that excited way that she’d thought might’ve been lost to her forever. Eventually she bit the bullet and dug that key out of the shoebox in the garage.

 

 _Okay,_ she rationalised to herself, so she’d promised to leave him alone. And she was doing that! Going to check on a series of storage lockers, the payment of which may or may not have been kept up, which were _in her own name_ didn’t contravene that, did it?

 

She might as well check for mildew, right? And maybe she might want to store some stuff there – the garage was looking pretty full, after all. And it probably wasn’t the worst idea in the world to make sure that there weren’t units full of criminal evidence or dead bodies or, jeez, holed up gangbangers under her name now that she was aware that Rio was around. This was hardly meddling, it was _checking_ , it was insurance. Just a peace of mind mission.

 

She didn’t tell Annie and Ruby that she was going, but refused to feel bad about it. Maybe she was too used to doing things alone now. And anyway, she thought, remembering attempting to count stacks and stacks of fake bills, confidently walking through with containers of gasoline, pressing one of his shirts to her nose in the aftermath, this was hardly her first trip here solo.

 

The key still worked at least. The units were predictably empty. She had no way of knowing when they’d been cleared out, she realised mournfully. Had it only been since she saw him less than a week ago? Or had they been vacant for months and months? If she’d come here again, after those first few awful weeks, might she have seen this and had an inkling…? Had he or his kept eyes on her movements possibly, timing the removal to avoid her?

 

There was no fuck-you bottle of bourbon waiting for her this time – she couldn’t say she was surprised.

 

But then, inspecting the last unit, she noticed something small and white, almost blending into the floor under the glaring lights. She picked it up and turned it round. A post card. For one electrifying second she mistook it for a picture of herself but then the world crashed back into focus. It was some kind of 50s-style pin-up photograph, the woman in the photo had her colouring but a softer, more amused face than she could remember ever having had. She was dressed in white lingerie, the image fairly chaste in a way.

 

The bra wasn’t quite sheer but there was definitely a hint of nipples through the fabric. French knickers with suspenders and stockings completed the outfit. The model was smiling wickedly, eyes looking up and away from the camera’s gaze.

 

She supposed it could have just been dropped in the move. Remembered the desperate quest for one of Kenny’s favourite cuddly toys when they’d first transferred to the big house they lived in now. But. _Only_ this? Smack in the middle of the unit furthest from the entrance? It did feel like it’d been left here for her. And she had no idea how the fuck to feel about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally conceived as a one-shot but I had some ideas for continuing this so I guess it's going multi-chapter :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her meandering thoughts of earlier had been a little hard to grasp onto, at least in a way she thought would stick longer term. If she was going to work out what the hell was going on with Rio, and what it meant for her, she needed something tangible to work with; she needed to see her thoughts.

Beth loved her kids, she truly did – more than anything, but she’d probably be among the first to admit they weren’t necessarily the greatest conversationalists in the world.

 

With Kenny out at a friend’s, it was just her and the three littlest at home. She and Dean had been trialling a system, in an apparently endless quest for maximum stability, where the kids switched between them every two weeks for the last little while, and it was largely going well. She’d worried it might freak them out more – that every time they got settled they’d suddenly have to move again. So far though it seemed to suit them better than being jumbled around more frequently.

 

Maybe if Dean’s idea for the two of them splitting an apartment, trading off time at the house with the kids, had actually been feasible that would have been the best scenario for the children, but it had quickly become clear that she and Dean needed to make a clean break of it, needed to not be in each other’s space, especially once he started dating Maria. Beth carefully forbore from wrinkling her nose at the thought of Dean’s new gal pal – Maria was definitely trying, and she was _sweet_. If laughably youthful.

 

And although guilt had been such a huge part of Beth’s life for so long that she wouldn’t be surprised if she found out it had ground its way into her very DNA strands, she could acknowledge that her munchkins were resilient and happy. And that surely keeping herself sane, and able to tackle co-parenting with their father calmly, was ultimately what was best for her brood?

 

Dean’d been pretty freaked out by her own freaking out after the whole… _thing_. She couldn’t exactly fault him for that either. And to his credit, Beth’d truly believed that his concern for the kids’ safety was entirely genuine that time around, not like the time he’d swept them away from her with a heavy ultimatum hanging overhead.

 

It’d taken a while for him to feel comfortable with her having them all by herself, and honestly it had taken her a little time too. She’d _killed someone_ – or at least that’s what she’d known back then – and had briefly been a horror-filled wreck.

 

Part of the initial compromise had involved filling the children’s schedule with even more activities. Nothing costly, the dealership was back up and running but they were hardly raking it in and Beth was careful now not to let on to Dean about any extracurricular profits, but there were plenty of playdates, free classes run by volunteers, and opportunities to visit slightly more distant family as Dean had gotten back in touch with a plethora of cousins on some mission to find himself again post-divorce. Now, though, as she’d increasingly assuaged Dean’s concerns, the reins of those packed itineraries had begun to slacken in earnest.

 

So playing this bizarre corruption of snap, which for some reason had to involve exactly eight and a half card decks, with Danny, Emma and Jane? That was pure unadulterated delight for Beth.

 

The three of them were happily giggling, and as Beth was finding herself without much in the way of demands on her mental acuity, extremely content to observe their fun, and fairly shaky on the rules (if indeed there were any consistent ones), an important part of her mind was free to Zen out. This kind of afternoon was truly more relaxing than yoga or a massage or bucketloads of chamomile tea.

 

That backdrop of her three smiling babies did its work to stop her thoughts from darkening as she mused, too. Suddenly she found herself able to be clinical, almost purely analytical.

 

*

 

Later, once she’d put the three of them to bed and called to check in on Kenny sleeping over at Sanjeet’s, she’d dug out a large, solid piece of card and some crafting supplies.

 

Her meandering thoughts of earlier had been a little hard to grasp onto, at least in a way she thought would stick longer term. If she was going to work out what the _hell_ was going on with Rio, and what it meant for her, she needed something tangible to work with; she needed to _see_ her thoughts.

 

Beth started by writing down ‘loft’ neatly, left of centre, then diligently filled in the exact address immediately below with a finer-tipped pen, her tongue sticking out slightly as she worked.

 

Then, nearer the top, she wrote ‘CANADA’ in tidy block capitals. Next she added ‘Big Mike’, with that location’s details too. ‘Pills’ and ‘cars’ were popped nearby. Beth racked her brain for any details pertaining to those operations that Rio might’ve let slip but had to conclude that he’d been frustratingly tight lipped. So she settled for grabbing a pencil and adding ‘prescription medication’ and ‘woman he hugged?’ below the two respective headings – trying, even now, even alone, to keep her expression smooth as she remembered the sight of him pressed up against the stunning woman in the parking lot.

 

She let her eyes drift over her work so far and then felt her mind click back over to the main conclusions from her earlier ruminations. She was starting to doubt that he’d been here, in Detroit, all this time. It was only a hunch, she had no actual evidence, but mightn’t they have crossed paths sooner if he had been…?

 

She’d realised she had no idea if he was from here, or even Michigan at all, originally. Apart from his son, and her assumption that she’d seen Rio pick him up from his ex that time she’d followed him, she didn’t know of him having any family in town. So if he was recuperating, biding his time, where might he have gone? _Other than Legoland_ , she mentally added.

 

Beth grabbed her pens again, selected a choice one, and jotted down ‘Could be Canadian?’ beneath ‘CANADA’, then added a lightbulb sticker next to the question mark for good measure. It wasn’t exactly much to go on, but it was decidedly better than nothing.

 

‘Christopher’ was added in big letters, up near the apartment’s address, and then ‘Marcus’ nearby. Rio had never told her his son’s name, but she’d heard it from Jane. Or rather, she’d heard ‘Marrus’ from Jane who couldn’t quite get her mouth around the two syllables, but her siblings had been quick to both mock and correct her. That was information that Rio might not have meant to give away to her – but she had it nevertheless. She considered what else that could possibly be true of as she filled the area around Marcus’ name with things she’d gleaned that he was fond of, including a glittery triceratops sticker (the T-Rex ones were long gone) and a passable sketch of a baseball bat.

 

Some of what she scribbled down, expensive tastes; foodie; likes abstract art; terrible handwriting; vinyl hipster; good with numbers, seemed a little superfluous but she figured she might as well get it all out. Seeing her thoughts was helping, was sparking more.

 

Other sections she was prouder of. ‘Loves a storage unit’ was there, of course, but there was also ‘Fine and Frugal’ and underneath that in smaller letters: ‘laundered money’, ‘deal with Boomer?’ and ‘stored body there’. On looking at that again she added ‘s?’ after ‘body’ but then had to cross it out and amend it to ‘bodies?’, already knowing that she would be showing this to Ruby and not wanting to be teased for shitty spelling.

 

There was an area where she’d scrawled ‘wears a lot of black’, with ‘loves hats’ next to it and, in a different pen, ‘has other clothes though’. And underneath that in pencil, ‘multiple personality disorder???’.

 

Up near the top was ‘has bosses???’ and down in one corner ‘had a thing for me?’. Feeling brave, she considered that last question mark and decided to cover it with a blushing emoji sticker. She was a big fan of this sticker set, even happier that she’d got it on sale.

 

She kept going, pouring every impression out, until she finally thought she’d gotten it all down, even including ‘says bitch a lot’ with a little frowny face. It was past two in the morning by the time she was done, but she was nowhere near tired, just pleasantly satisfied.

 

*

 

She called Annie and Ruby over the next day so she could show them her creation.

 

They were perhaps not as impressed as she’d hoped.

 

“So we’re putting out feelers for a possibly Canadian, vaguely misogynistic maths whiz with a lot of money who _might_ be found hanging out at art galleries or… investing in a black hat store, or maybe a hipster cafe, and who _could_ have single custody of a little boy who likes, oh yeah, the things that all little boys like?” asked Annie, somehow managing to get that all out without needing to pause for a breath.

 

“Well, no,” said Beth, sighing a little in frustration, “to start with I don’t think we want to put out feelers. What if he found out? That’s the last thing I want!”

 

If Ruby seemed to eye her a little sceptically after that last part Beth chose not to delve into why at this precise time.

 

“I suppose something here might give us a lead to work with,” Ruby said slowly, running her eyes over the board. “I mean, like, if his kid’s still in town he’s gotta be in school? And that means a paper trail.”

 

“Unless he’s a religious nutjob having him homeschooled!” Annie said, with a little too much glee.

 

“I don’t see religious nutjob on the mindmap, so I think we’re good!” Ruby replied with a grin.

 

“I don’t think we should _start_ with trying to dig up info on his kid?” Beth said, a little acidly. “For all we know, he’s not actually planning anything right now. But if he thinks I’m threatening his son?” she looked alarmed, and vaguely nauseous.

 

“Hm,” said Ruby so gently that it made Beth ache, “are you completely sure that he’s not a threat to your kids? Hell… all of our kids?”

 

Beth slowly shook her head, evidently miserable. Rio had always seemed to like children, was noticeably gentler around them. She didn’t think he’d hurt any of their little ones. But- but she’d almost killed him and that had to mean that all bets were off.

 

Annie tapped at an area of the card headed ‘TURNER’, squinting. “What about this then?” she asked. “Do you think gang friend made some kind of deal with him?”

 

“His name is Rio,” Beth said, on autopilot, then felt extremely annoyed that she was apparently still doing that.

 

“Er, according to this it’s Christopher.” Ruby chimed in, pointing to the relevant part of the board which was replete with Beth’s attempts at drawing out his neck tattoo and chain’s design from memory.

 

Beth huffed an annoyed noise, but began making a conciliatory gesture in almost the same moment, then turned her attention back to Annie’s question.

 

“I don’t know,” she said, considering. “I mean the most logical explanation seems to be that Turner saved Rio’s life, right?”

 

“Yeah, unless-” began Annie, too-excitedly.

 

“He’s not a zombie!” Ruby interrupted her, irritated.

 

“I was gonna say vampire, _actually_.” Annie’s sulky pout made her look all of five years old.

 

“Oh my god, I cannot!!” Ruby groaned, teeth clenched and eyes wide.

 

Beth clapped her hands together, bringing their collective focus back to her. “Or do we think that Turner might have just helped him out of the goodness of his heart?” she asked. “After Rio kidnapped him and...” she gulped audibly, “tried to make me shoot him?” Those last few words all came out in a rush but, hey, at least she’d got them out.

 

“Well he is 5-0,” mused Annie, “protect and serve and all?” She shrugged and pulled a face, “Maybe he felt like he had to help? ‘Specially cos in a way the only reason _he_ was alive was cos this other dude got shot?”

 

“He’s FBI, Annie.” Ruby argued. “Not sure protect and serve is really their jam.”

 

“Well what’s the FBI’s...slogan then?” Beth rolled her eyes as she spoke but could already feel herself getting dragged into this sideline. She’d been to see Turner, could sort of see the right kind of sign in her mind’s eye but she was fuzzy on the detail.

 

“ _Semper fi_ ,” said Annie with confidence.

 

“No… no that doesn’t sound right-” said Ruby, face screwed up in thought.

 

“Okay,” broke in Beth, giving up on that, “well either way-”

 

“Huh, turns out it’s ‘fidelity, bravery, integrity’,” announced Annie, reading from her phone. “Well that’s dumb – not catchy at all, and too many commas.”

 

“ _Well_ ,” Beth tried again.

 

“Not sure Turner’s got much of any of those qualities.” Bitterness was evident in Ruby’s tone.

 

Beth blinked at the venom. “So, uh, you don’t think he would’ve saved Rio? Not without getting something in return?”

 

“You know… _no_. No I don’t.” Ruby was quiet for a moment and then added, “I really hate that guy.”

 

Beth nodded understandingly.

 

Ruby continued, “He made me feel like _nothing_. Like less than dirt. And what he put Stan through-”. She broke off, then looked up at Beth a little shyly. They’d moved past all that, Beth had forgiven her totally for what had gone down way back when, but talking about it was still a little awkward.

 

“B, he really seemed to hate you. Like… it was super personal.”

 

“She did save his life though,” Annie rationalised. “You’d think that might be enough to get you into his good books.”

 

“Maybe,” considered Beth, chewing a little at her lower lip. She pointed at ‘has bosses???’ on the board. “At least if they made a deal it might be about bigger fish than us?”

 

Annie just shrugged one shoulder. Ruby’s lips were pursed in thought but after a moment she said, “For my money? Turner’s _hella_ shady. He told Stan he’d falsify evidence against him, against anyone really, no problemo. How do we know he hasn’t been in somebody’s pocket the whole dang time?”

 

Well that was a concerning thought.

 

“You mean him and Rio could have been working together the whole time?” Beth couldn’t keep the incomprehensible rage at that idea out of her voice entirely.

 

“Hmm, possibly. But I was thinking more… what if it was a rival gang or something? Maybe that’s why he was so eager to get us off the board?”

 

“Police corruption is a real issue, dog,” nodded Annie, a little more sombre.

 

“Hmm,” said Beth.

 

“And B?” Ruby added.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Some more food for thought…” Ruby poked at Big Mike’s name on the board. “It was super chill how Mike helped you out with the paper and all for, you know, the funny money-”

 

“I dunno if he did that cos he’s a really chill dude or whatever,” Annie broke in, big smile adorning her face again. “Might have had more to do with how intimidated he was by the woman who shot him in the foot!”

 

Ruby groaned, her eyes falling shut. “Oh god… it’s been so long and I still can’t believe I did that...”

 

“Hey, hey, hey!” said Beth, rubbing soothingly at Ruby’s back. “He’s fine now! And remember how he said that time off was really good for him? He reconnected with his daughter!”

 

Ruby opened her eyes and shot Beth a rueful smile.

 

“Now what were you saying?” Beth asked her, turning to give Annie a reprimanding glance in the hopes of shutting her up. Annie predictably stuck out her tongue in response.

 

“Uh,” said Ruby, struggling to find the thread of her thoughts. “Oh yeah… Well Mike’s Rio’s connect, right? If Rio _was_ trying to find out what you’re up to, it probably wouldn’t be that hard? Maybe we oughta put a pin it for now just until-”

 

“Oh, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!” came Annie’s voice. “Look we’ve tested out the cash all over town. It’s _legit_. We’ve done good work.”

 

“Yeah but it’s risky right now.” Ruby replied. “Let’s say Rio has made a deal with Turner. And he’s supes mad at us, or at least Beth. And it’s easy for him to work out what we’re up to. That doesn’t add up to anything good.”

 

“Turner’d need evidence.” Beth pointed out.

 

“Would he? He could just make it up,” said Ruby.

 

“He might.” Beth conceded. “But he’s had a year to do that. Hell, we don’t even know if he’s still in town! And Annie’s right – I saved his life. I don’t think he’d come after me again without a reason.”

 

“Yeah, and Rio telling him we’re up to our old tricks might be all the reason he needs,” Ruby told her.

 

“Maybe we need a patsy,” suggested Annie. _That_ sent more than one cold shiver up Beth’s spine but… it wasn’t necessarily the worst idea.

 

“A Mary Pat-sy?” laughed Ruby.

 

Annie shook her head. “No, she’s kind of a snake. We want someone dumb, someone more malleable.”

 

“Well I don’t want to go into _another_ business with Dean,” Beth said immediately. Then, off of Annie’s look, “I mean, that’s where you were going with that, right?”

 

“Actually, I’m kind of thinking-” said Annie, almost unwillingly, “we should ask Amber if she wants to go into business with us?”

 

Ruby made a despairing sound but Beth looked thoughtful. “That’s not actually a terrible suggestion.”

 

“See!” Annie crowed.

 

“We wouldn’t need to explain what was happening, even if we did she wouldn’t follow it,” continued Beth, making Ruby laugh. “And we could say that we needed her cos she’s got better credit than us. Hell, that’s probably true!”

 

“If she ever got questioned by the police or anyone she’d definitely blab everything she knew,” warned Ruby.

 

Beth nodded her agreement at that, “It’s something to think about anyway.”

 

“So what do you want to do about all of this?” Ruby asked, gesturing at the board.

 

“Actually, I had a little idea about that,” said Beth with a serene smile.

 

Ruby beamed encouragingly at her.

 

“Yeah, I think we should show it to Stan.”

 

“Oh I don’t know about that!” said Ruby straight off. “He’s put those police days behind him, to start with.”

 

“I know, _I know_. But he’s still got friends there, right? And he’s still got that investigative mind. He always works out who the murderer is before any of us when we watch SVU. And maybe he’d remember some details from the case that could help?” Beth turned pleading eyes on her.

 

“ _Fine_ ,” breathed Ruby, “but you guys _cannot_ tell him about the… _other stuff_. I’m being so serious!”

 

“We know!” Beth and Annie agreed in unison, Ruby had insisted on top secrecy about their counterfeiting enough times.

 

“He cannot know!”

 

“Relax, we’ve got it,” Annie told her, “besides it’s barely a crime! It’s white collar shiz. It’s not like we’re gang affiliated, not any more.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” said Ruby rolling her eyes, “those aren’t arguments Stan would buy. He’s a good person.”

 

“ _You’re_ a good person,” Beth insisted, bumping her best friend’s shoulder with her own. Ruby’s eyes softened but she didn’t say anything further.

 

“Question,” said Annie, filling the silence, “if he’s Canadian but doesn’t respect women,” her hand moved quickly from the top of the board to knock at ‘says bitch a lot’, “do you think he’s a fan of _The Handmaid’s Tale_?”

 

Beth closed her eyes, trying to remember if Rio’d ever said much to her about TV shows. “I think he likes movies,” she muttered. “Yeah he did a bit from, oh what was it… _Seven_? Yeah _Seven_ , Brad Pitt!” A small triumphant smile played on her lips as she grabbed a pen and added ‘likes movies’ to the board.

 

She didn’t notice immediately that the other two were shooting that pitying-fearful-concerned look at her again, but when she did she felt her mood sour. Something petulant urged her to write ‘fetish for white lingerie’ down too, right in front of them, but she tamped down on it. She hadn’t told Ruby and Annie about her little trip to the storage locker or the postcard she’d found there, wasn’t completely sure why.

 

She and Ruby agreed a time for her to come round and see Stan the next day before they parted ways. Beth tidied the board away carefully, her kids would be home soon and she was adamant that they weren’t going to see any signs of her criminal endeavours this time around.

 

*

 

Later though, with the children all safely tucked away, she couldn’t help acting on the desire to get both board and postcard out from their hiding places. Allowed herself some indulgent wondering. What had come first in Rio’s life? Had the picture reminded him of her, or had she fulfilled some existing fantasy for him? And was that what he'd thought of her – using him to enact some bad boy daydream?

 

She’d taken a picture of the postcard on her phone and tried reverse Google image searching it, but that hadn’t been much help. Just vaguely similar but generic images, and unsurprisingly some stills from what seemed to be porn.

 

Beth turned her attention to the board again instead. Suddenly she clocked something missing. She’d dutifully filled in the addresses of all their meeting places, but she hadn’t remembered to include the cafe she’d run into him so recently at! She quickly made sure to get it written down and then got the place up on her cell’s map app, double checking that she’d written down the address correctly.

 

“Hmm,” she said as she looked at the street view, “hmm.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry no Rio for a while but, hey, it's just like the show... he turns up for his 30 seconds of screen time and then you wonder when he's going to pop up again ;)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Over the years, between the distractions of raising kids and the entrenchment of her failed marriage to Dean, Beth had somehow begun thinking of Stan as simply Ruby’s husband. When they were teens though, Stan had been one of her very best friends. And it felt like they were making their way back there finally.

For some reason the fact that Stan was the one to open the door to her, though it was largely him she’d come to see, startled her for a second.

 

“Stanley,” she greeted, after a pause.

 

“Bethany,” he returned, a little twinkle in his eye and his old high school nickname for her light on his tongue.

 

Once he’d let her in she dropped her bags and wrapped him in a hug.

 

Things had been a little weird between the two of them for a hot minute – he’d lost his job, he’d been arrested, all because he’d wanted to save his family from the consequences of a stupid mistake that Beth had made.

 

Over the years, between the distractions of raising kids and the entrenchment of her failed marriage to Dean, Beth had somehow begun thinking of Stan as simply Ruby’s husband. When they were teens though, Stan had been one of her very best friends. And it felt like they were making their way back there finally.

 

“Hey now! Who’s that with her hands all over my man?” Ruby joked, coming towards them.

 

Beth smiled and moved to give Ruby a hug of her own.

 

Stan shrugged and joined them, enveloping his wife too.

 

“Well this is nice, very… _affirming,_ ” she said. “If this is all you came round for, I’ll take it!”

 

Beth peeled away with a sigh saying, “Unfortunately not.” She picked up the art bag that contained the large board as they relocated to the dining room table. Once they’d all been appropriately caffeinated, Beth set about swearing Stan to absolute secrecy.

 

“Beth, you _know_ I’m not a police officer any more,” Stan said gently.

 

And that was Stan all over, no resentment clouding his voice. He truly did seem to see his time in law enforcement as some sort of failed experiment. He was working for a precariously funded kids’ after school music program now, picking up some extra money with private piano and singing lessons easily via that too. The pay wasn’t amazing, but he was happy. And of course she knew what he did – her kids had practically spent more time with him at classes than they had with her this past year.

 

“I know, but I need you to promise me. This has to stay between us – no matter what.”

 

“Okay,” he agreed easily, sticking out his pinkie so they could seal the deal. Beth knew he was treating her like she was one of his children, but she also knew that that was no bad thing. She saw him with Sara all the time, the way he genuinely respected his young daughter’s opinions and feelings made Beth’s heart swell.

 

Sure, she knew Dean loved their kids but she didn’t know that she could imagine him treating them, particularly her thoughtful little girls, that same way. But maybe it would happen organically when they were older? She’d have to hope so anyway.

 

She solemnly joined fingers with Stan, and then unveiled her work, talking him through it.

 

“Shit Beth, this is good stuff!” Stan said when she’d gone over it all.

 

“Thanks,” she smiled, thrilling slightly at the praise.

 

“I mean it, there’s info on here the FBI’s probably dying to know.”

 

“Stanley, you promised,” Ruby chided.

 

“Scout’s honour baby,” he agreed. “I’m just _saying_.” Then, turning back to Beth, “And you know I think you might be on to something with the Canadian thing. Not sure anyone put it together but I think one or two of the guys associated with the whole mess had some connection… That dumb young guy of his who got picked up? I’m sure his mom’s Canadian or something, I remember my partner teasing him about moose.”

 

Ruby looked quietly impressed.

 

“Well, more than anything I’d love to get some info on what Turner’s up to. Whether the two of them made some kind of deal; if they might be planning on framing me for something.”

 

“Not sure I can help with that,” said Stan, “I’m not exactly drowning in intel these days.”

 

“I know,” Beth said, “but maybe if we could find out if he’s still in town at least? I mean you’re still friendly with some guys on the force, right?”

 

“Turner’s the guy who got Stan arrested,” Ruby argued. “It’s gonna look _mighty_ fishy if Stan starts sniffing around, asking if he’s cleared out.” She tried to glare her extra heavy warning eyes at Beth without Stan noticing.

 

“I know that,” she agreed placatingly, “but what if we arranged for Stan to accidentally on purpose run into them? It wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary for the conversation to turn that way… They ask about what you’re up to now, you say it’s great. That Turner’s BS was actually a blessing in disguise-”

 

“The lord does work in mysterious ways,” Stan grinned. Beth couldn’t bite back a smile at Ruby’s affectionate eyeroll.

 

“Sure. And then you say: hey what ever happened to that guy anyway?”

 

“Hmm,” said Ruby, “could work. Except for one thing – old shaky leg over here isn’t exactly what you’d call a good dissembler.”

 

“I thought about that,” Beth admitted, a slightly mischievous smile lightning up her face. “But I’ve been known to spin a decent yarn or two. And I was thinking – maybe I could coach you?”

 

*

 

Stan didn’t need much convincing, so she and Ruby spent a couple of hours putting him through his paces until Ruby had to go head to her shift. They took turns as his scene partner, the other observing so they could make suggestions, occasionally doing utterly bizarre things without warning to throw him off his game.

 

When he didn’t flinch at Beth’s surprisingly competent velociraptor impression coming out of nowhere, even Ruby had to admit that she was impressed with Stan’s performance.

 

“Hey Beth, maybe you should start a sister organisation teaching drama,” she suggested with a smile.

 

“I have been thinking of starting something of my own,” Beth answered breezily, causing Ruby to narrow her eyes warningly before going to gather her stuff for work.

 

“You wanna stay for lunch?” Stan offered. “We can go over this stuff some more if you want? Have a sneaky glass of vino?”

 

“Mm, yes to the lunch, no to the vino,” replied Beth.

 

Stan nodded once, with his easy smile. Beth figured that Ruby had probably kept the worst of it from him but he must have gathered some sense of how she’d been after… _that_. But even if he hadn’t, he was _Stan_. He didn’t question her turning down a drink, though he surely remembered her teasing him into drinking his very first beer, Beth even then a little too world-weary and suddenly too grown from a few months of hanging out with Dean and his crew – all older and rowdier than her, Ruby and Stan. He just went to grab her another cup of coffee.

 

“You know I _really_ am sorry-” Beth tried again, for what felt like the millionth time when he returned with her refill.

 

“You still on that?” he asked. “I did something stupid, but it was to make sure that something worse didn’t happen. That’s all. _I_ did it.” Then, noticing Ruby, returned and ready to go but caught in the doorway gazing at him, he moved toward her to say goodbye.

 

“You’re a silly sentimentalist,” she told him.

 

“Love you too baby,” he said serenely, giving her a peck on the lips.

 

Beth was glad that Annie had work and couldn't join them today, she’d have been mock retching by now for sure.

 

Frankly, if it was anyone else Beth might have found it nauseating too, but she knew them and she knew them so well. She’d seen the whole journey of their relationship, how the trust and love and _history_ had been built from the ground up. It made her smile, but it also made her heart ache a little.

 

She wasn’t too proud to admit, especially not here in this warm, familiar space, that she wanted something like that for herself, tried to imagine how that might work some day.

 

Not that she’d exactly had time to put herself out there. Between raising four kids, running a not particularly successful business with her ex-husband, forays back into the world of money laundering and the attendant problems of getting a new business off the ground, guilt and grief spiralling… she hadn’t really had the time, or inclination, to date. And now with Rio back in the picture, haunting her thoughts doggedly and causing anxiety to lick at her constantly, she somehow seemed to have even less time, unsure how that was even possible.

 

“Love you,” said Ruby, “both!”

 

“Love you!” Beth called to her disappearing form. She settled in for her meal with Stan, gleefully looking forward to some cute music teacher anecdotes amongst the crime boss theorising.

 

*

 

High on an upswing after a fun lunch, Beth figured she might as well follow up on her stray idea from the night before.

 

It was stupid probably, just a dumb hunch, but… Looking up that cafe, she’d realised that there was a small art house theatre a few doors up. She dimly recalled stumbling past it in her desperate search for a bar, could just about picture the stylised ‘cineMA’ logo.

 

It almost certainly meant nothing, but after that whole ‘likes movies’ debacle she sort of churlishly nonetheless wanted it to. Intellectually she knew that watching films wasn’t exactly a unique personality trait, it had been the first item on Ruby and Annie’s blacklist when they demanded a list of hobbies from her for the dating profile they’d insisted on making for her post-divorce. The dating profile that Beth’d soon deleted.

 

She decided to drive over to the theatre and check it out. Most likely all she’d get would be a chance to get a little culture, but that didn’t sound so terrible. So what if Ruby and Annie thought being a cinephile was just as cliché as liking long walks on the beach and sunsets – Beth _was_ a movie fan (who couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone out to watch one) and she’d love the chance to find out more about what was on in town.

 

She was able to find parking nearby, and, walking up to the building, she noticed for the first time how striking it was. The style was art deco, she wasn’t sure if it was authentic, if perhaps the building had been preserved. There were lots of pleasing splashes of colour, too. It didn’t seem too busy, it was only early afternoon, but there were a few people buying tickets and a couple milling around the teeny cafe/bar area.

 

Beth strolled in and began looking idly around, picking up a brochure to ponder as she went.

 

Catching sight of a certain poster pulled her up short though. Could it be…? The woman in the picture was pale, curvy, amused. The hair was a shade redder perhaps but they were similar waves. Dramatic blue eyes. Pouting pink lips. The lingerie in this picture was blue but… Beth moved closer, scrutinising. She wished she had the postcard with her now, so she could compare the two.

 

“Like what you see?” a pleasant voice, tinged with amusement, broke her concentration.

 

Beth turned to see its owner, a young woman, mid-twenties at most, who clearly worked there. She had short dark hair, a couple of facial piercings and a friendly grin. Something about her reminded Beth of Annie, and she couldn’t help warming to her instantly.

 

“Oh, err. Yes. Cool poster,” Beth answered, smiling back, and trying to act nonchalant, like she spent a lot of time staring intently at pictures of women in their underwear in public.

 

“You know we’re doing an erotica retrospective,” the woman continued, pointing at the schedule in Beth’s hand, “you should come down.”

 

“I’m not sure that’s really my thing,” Beth flustered.

 

“Don’t worry, I know how it might sound. But the whole program’s based around the history of women’s sexuality as it's been portrayed on film. There’s some really interesting picks - a lot of world cinema. And we’ve got a whole bunch of talks surrounding them, several fascinating women are doing talks and panels here.”

 

Huh, well maybe that did sound like it could be her kind of thing after all.

 

“Thanks,” Beth replied, and then, impetuously, “maybe I will come check it out.”

 

“Cool,” she said, “I’m Meredith by the way.”

 

“Nice to meet you.”

 

“Oh, and we’re showing the film this poster’s for on Saturday,” Meredith told her, pointing at the image of the woman in blue, before turning to head over to the ticket office where a short line was starting to form.

 

“It’s a movie poster?” Beth blurted out, mostly to herself.

 

“Yeah, the title’s at the bottom,” Meredith answered, sounding amused again and gesturing before actually heading away.

 

Oh, look at that, Beth acknowledged dismally, as she dragged her eyes below the woman in the picture this time to see the film’s information. She’d been so caught up in trying to ascertain whether this was the same person as in the postcard that she hadn’t noticed anything else. Meredith must have thought she was an oddball she thought, flushing.

 

Not that Meredith had seemed particularly perturbed. Beth decided she liked this place, it had a pleasant vibe.

 

Maybe she did want to watch _Love’s Bitch_ next Saturday then. All four of her children already had plans that evening, which seemed particularly fortuitous. And she figured that she could really use some me time to relax. Maybe she wasn’t exactly ready to re-enter the dating game, but if anyone needed a chance to de-stress it was her. She glanced at her watch as she headed out, realising that, _shit_ , it was almost time to pick up the kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just have a lot of feelings about Stan and Beth's friendship, ok


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Operation meet-cute was a total success!”

They were driving over to their meeting with Amber together when Stan called, so Ruby put him on speaker.

 

“Operation meet-cute was a total success!” he crowed proudly.

 

Ruby and Annie whooped excitedly, and Beth smiled gladly, still focussed on driving.

 

“No shaky leg?” Ruby pressed. “Derrick didn’t think it was weird that you ambled past his son’s game?”

 

“Nope!” Stan breezed. “I think you’re forgetting what excellent coaching I had.”

 

“Did you find out anything about Turner?” Beth broke in.

 

“Yep,” Stan answered, his tone becoming a little more serious. “You were right, he’s still in town. Or rather he’s _back_ – apparently he was gone a while.”

 

Beth inhaled sharply.

 

“Sounds like he’s excited about something too – ‘back on his bullshit’ was how Derrick put it.”

 

“Any idea what that’s about?” Annie asked, leaning forward from the back seat.

 

“Not exactly,” Stan admitted, “but I got the sense that it was bigger than before. D was talking about a maniacal glint in Turner’s eyes he’d never seen before...”

 

Ruby shivered.

 

“If I was a betting man, I’d say it wasn’t about you Beth...”

 

“But you’re not a betting man,” Beth finished for him. “All right, thanks Stan, you’ve been amazing.”

 

“Well I might not be all done...” Stan replied. “Baby?”

 

“Yeah…?” said Ruby sternly, not buying his deceptively sweet tone for even a second.

 

“Well I mighta sorta kinda invited him and his wife round for dinner.”

 

“Oh hell no!” Ruby exploded.

 

“What’s wrong?” Annie loudly whispered. “It sounds like Stan can handle himself?”

 

“We don’t even have to dig for more info on Turner,” Stan added, “it just seemed rude not to-”

 

“Stanley! Lizzy chews with her mouth open! It’s disgusting and you _know_ it!”

 

Annie pulled a horrified face and reached over to squeeze Ruby’s hand reassuringly. Ruby turned to look at her and said, “It’s louder than I can possibly describe.”

 

Stan and Ruby bickered a little more before Ruby eventually conceded to the dinner plan in exchange for a multitude of extra foot rubs, Stan’s wheedling about selling the scene so well having forced cracks of amusement in her wall of annoyance.

 

Privately, Beth was eager for Stan to squeeze as much information as possible from his former colleague but didn’t offer an opinion, wary of applying too much pressure.

 

“You okay, B?” Ruby asked as they continued driving. “You’ve been quiet all morning. You’re not...nervous about seeing Amber?”

 

_Nervous_ wasn’t exactly the right word for it – Beth certainly wasn’t feeling particularly eager to entrap Amber in a scheme that would embroil her in a load of risk. Wasn’t that exactly what she’d been so pissed at Rio for on that fateful night? The hypocrisy kind of stung. But she was finding it hard to see another way forward right now.

 

None of that was easy for her to articulate though. And another problem was stopping her throat – she knew she ought to tell Ruby and Annie about her visits, first to the storage units and then to the theatre. Not that either trip had offered much in the way of a concrete lead, but if there was even a small chance it meant anything…

 

Every time she rehearsed it in her head she felt extremely ridiculous – it didn’t encourage her to bite the bullet and inform them. A dead man’s storage being cleared of all his stuff might have been a catchy headline, had they not already known he was alive. That something had been dropped there didn’t exactly sound earth-shattering. If there been a message left for her, or if what had been left had some actual significance – something they’d discussed or handled together – that might have been different.

 

The idea of showing them the postcard and trying to claim it meant something? It wasn’t hard to imagine Annie scoffing at her naivete or Ruby trying to soothe her, either assuming she was making excuses for Rio having the thing in the first place, or that she was desperately trying to cling to an unreachable past. And the fact that there was a cinema sort of near the cafe she’d run into him at, a cinema that might or might not have some tenuous connection to said postcard… No, it all came crashing down when she imagined them probing at her theorising.

 

Plus she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to explain to them that she was planning to go see what sounded like basically pornography on Saturday. They’d think she’d lost control of her senses entirely. She just needed a teeny little bit of breathing room, a chance to excise these notions of hers with the inevitability of dull reality. Then she’d be capable of ruefully admitting her conspiracy theories to them and moving forward.

 

So she just smiled at Ruby and told her, “I’m all right, just a little tired.”

 

Ruby didn’t quite seem to buy that but she at least let it lie.

 

*

When they arrived in Amber’s office she was blasting loud rock music, but moved to turn it down so they could hear each other speak.

 

“You listening to the MC5?” Ruby asked, sounding a little intrigued despite herself.

 

Amber met her eyes with a serious look and nodded, adding, “This is Detroit.”

 

Ruby couldn’t find anything to argue with there so simply smiled bemusedly.

 

“I like your haircut,” Annie offered. Amber had opted for a pixie cut since any of them had last seen her, and it suited her, adding a little maturity to the lines of her face.

 

“Thanks!” she replied chirpily, adding, “Your hair looks...okay.”

 

Annie smirked at that faint praise, she tended to get a kick out of Amber’s forthrightness.

 

“Sooo,” said Beth, “we’ve got a business proposition for you.”

 

“You want to buy more cars,” Amber assumed, reaching for a couple of files.

 

Amber had been one of the first people they’d used their own fake cash with, Beth purchasing a few cars to sell through the dealership. She’d allayed Dean’s suspicions by chalking the money up to the final dividends of her life of crime, but it was an excuse that came with an inbuilt expiration date.

 

Every so often since then she’d gotten Dean to agree to the two of them buying a couple of cars at a time from Amber, with Beth as the envoy of course. Beth’d switched the cash around when she did those deals, holding onto the real money and using the fake with Amber. That was hardly a steady cash washing model though, which is what had pushed the three of them towards the idea of starting their own business – preferably one that involved a constant stream of purchases.

 

They’d come up with a few additional ploys to tide them over too. They were wary of large scale shopping and returning but realised they could fly under the radar with smaller purchases at less attentive establishments, though they had to be careful to spread them out. Annie also favoured changing larger bills for smaller ones – popping into bars or even asking strangers on the street a few times. Ruby had taken to using change machines, though Beth had tried to warn her about the annoyance of hauling lots of coins around.

 

Beth hurriedly told her that they weren’t in the market for cars right now. Amber listened attentively as they explained their children’s costumes idea and outlined their initial plans to keep overheads low at first by mostly selling online or face-to-face to people they knew.

 

“It’s niche,” Amber said finally, “but I think it could work. You’ve proved a demand.” She pointed at the detailed charts they’d brought along.

 

Annie breathed a pleased sound of relief.

 

“One question though,” Amber continued, and Beth smiled encouragingly at her, expecting a softball. “Are you laundering money?”

 

That stunned the words from Beth’s mouth, she was left only with the truth and answered that they were making their own, looking Amber in the eye and ignoring Ruby and Annie’s obvious panic.

 

The younger woman nodded in an impressively business-like manner. “I _thought_ something was going on. And you _always_ pay in cash.”

 

“Is it obvious?” Ruby breathed.

 

Amber considered. “Not to most people,” she answered finally. “I don’t think a lot of people’d suspect you guys. You can sort of fly under the, uh, thingy.” She clicked her fingers, searching for the word. Giving up she added, “Because of, like, the patriarchy.”

 

Ruby and Annie’s eyes bugged a little at the surprising source of this pearl of wisdom, but Beth was less taken aback. She knew all too well how being wronged by a man, or maybe multiple men, could be a catalyst for introspection, even many moons later.

 

If Dean really had done a number on Amber, Beth was glad that she seemed to be bouncing back strong.

 

“If I’m taking on more of the danger, I’d expect to see that reflected in my share of the profits.”

 

The three of them looked at each other and then collectively nodded. This hadn’t been the plan, but it was something they could roll with. And it was hard not to feel somewhat impressed, if also shocked, by Amber.

 

Beth at least had started to wonder if Amber might have some well-hidden business acumen that could be of use to them. Considering their current surroundings that thought ought to have come to her sooner, she realised, they should know better than most that appearances could be deceptive.

 

“Is there a reason you need the business to not be in your name Mrs Boland?”

 

“Well we don’t have very good credit-” Annie began weakly.

 

“Call me Beth,” she interrupted frankly. “And, full disclosure, there’s someone who might be a little… out for my blood right now. At the moment it’d probably be best to keep my name, our names, out of it. If on paper you’re the boss and we’re just working for you, that might help it seem a little more legitimate.”

 

"Well you'll deal with that right?"

 

Beth beamed at Amber's trusting smile, pleased to be seen as so capable, saying simply, "I will." At least in the moment, she believed that she could.

 

They discussed plans some more, then all shook hands agreeably, with Amber giving them a short but entertaining ‘fuck the system’ pep talk.

 

As they rose to leave though, another of Amber’s questions made Beth pause.

 

“You left him right, Mrs- Beth?”

 

Beth nodded proudly, “Yep.”

 

“And you kept the house?”

 

Beth’s grin grew as she nodded.

 

“And you kept some of the business?”

 

Another nod from Beth.

 

Amber beamed back at her. “Good.” Then, “Would you guys… do you think you might like to have dinner with me and my girlfriend some time?”

 

The three of them shared a somewhat surprised yet soft look.

 

It was Ruby who spoke first, “Yeah Amber, that sounds nice.”

 

*

Saturday rolled around too quickly. Before she knew it, Beth was packing her babies off to two separate sleepovers, and then she had far too much time to worry herself into a state before 8 o’clock.

 

Clammy with nerves, she decided to change, starting with the new underwear set she’d ordered from a knock-off site that Annie’d recommended.

 

Beth wasn’t normally one for buying clothes, especially underwear, online. Finding clothes that fit nicely even _with_ the opportunity to try them on first was hard enough. But this website had asked for so many specific measurements that she hadn’t been all that amazed to find that the set practically fit her like a glove.

 

That the bra and panties were white wasn’t significant, didn’t mean anything. Or rather, what it meant had nothing to do with the postcard or its damned source. She hadn’t worn white underwear since she was a teenager really, still remembered Dean subtly mocking her chaste choice in bras the first time he’d gotten her shirt off. She’d associated white undies with a childish innocence long put behind her ever since, but seeing the woman in the picture, still certainly sexy in lacy ivory, had pushed her, had _allowed_ her, to get a similar set of her own.

 

Somehow she still kept having these strange revelations, long after the official dissolution of her marriage, of these weird ways that Dean had wormed his way into her subconscious without her realising, without him even necessarily having intended to do it.

 

Re-forming herself in the wake of everything presented an array of interesting challenges. She was feeling increasingly up to them though.

 

She gave her reflection an approving once-over, liking how the pale lace appeared against her skin. She looked ethereal, ghostly almost, and good. She looked good. Beth opted for skinny black jeans and a blue and white polka dot blouse that buttoned at the back for her outer layer.

 

By the time she’d neatly put away the discarded outfit choices and carefully re-done her make up, she discovered it was just about time to leave. She grabbed a jacket and her purse, idly wondering if she ought to eat something since she hadn’t had dinner yet and the film would presumably not finish till late. It had been an embarrassingly long time since she’d gone to the movies in the evening, could hardly remember how she’d used to eat around a late activity like this.

 

She wasn’t hungry yet though, and she didn’t have anything already made that she could easily take along with. She picked up an apple and a cereal bar for snacking, putting them in her purse, and resolved to pick up some take out on the way back, revelling in the thought of extending her guilty pleasure evening (as well as a night off from washing dishes).

 

Beth arrived at the theatre in good time, purchased a ticket without trouble and slid into screen 3 able to catch most of Meredith’s introduction of the film. The smile of recognition that Meredith offered her buoyed her spirits as she tried to decide where to sit. Looking down at her ticket she confirmed that there was no assigned seating.

 

She hadn’t exactly been sure what kind of crowd to expect at a Saturday night skin flick, but she was pleasantly surprised. True there were a couple of clusters of giggling young men, boys really, but there were more smatterings of respectable-looking couples, groups of women of varied ages, and what appeared to be some fairly intense film students – poised for note-taking eagerly.

 

The screen was fairly small, rows of seats stretched back but they weren’t split by an aisle. She opted to place herself near as many women as possible without getting too near any one group. She was proud of herself for actually heading out for the evening, and for doing something a little risqué. Though it hardly ranked on her scale compared to major crimes and illicit bathroom sex, she’d almost talked herself out of coming more than once just that evening. She still really wasn’t in the mood for _conversation_.

 

It wasn’t that she couldn’t handle herself if some guy started hitting on her, or worse _exposing_ himself, she mentally added, recalling a particularly bad movie-going experience when she and Ruby were sixteen. But she knew that unwanted attention would dampen her spirits, and she just wanted to have an enjoyable evening.

 

The movie began, cheesy but fun music sounding loudly as the opening credits, depicting changing light over a small village as dawn broke, rolled. Beth smiled softly, surprised at the impressive cinematography. She shifted in her seat, getting more comfortable.

 

She didn’t even notice that someone had sat next to her until she heard, in an achingly familiar drawl, “Thought I told you to stay away?” from the seat to her left.

 

Beth spluttered indignantly, but tried to silence herself when a head from the row in front turned to glare at her.

 

She re-angled her body so that she could drink Rio in properly, but if he was hard to read at the best of times, a dark theatre wasn’t exactly doing her any favours. What she could catch of his expression, the brief glimpses of his face lit by the screen’s flickering, didn’t seem _angry_ exactly, which gave her a modicum of hope.

 

“ _You_ sat next to me,” she hissed, still incredulous.

 

He leaned towards her a little, “ _You_ came here.”

 

She continued to look at him as if he’d grown at least one extra head, before she felt something shift in her mind. “This is _yours_?”

 

“Shh!” came a voice from the row behind. Beth bit her lip anxiously.

 

“Yeah,” was all that Rio actually said when her attention was back on him, but his tone seemed to be heavily implying _duh obviously_ , like she’d missed some glowing neon ‘Rio’s palace’ sign. She supposed that she’d been out of it enough lately that she could have.

 

Beth stared at him, stupefied. She wasn’t sure what to do. True, she’d promised to stay away from him but she hadn’t come here to seek him out or to meddle. She’d come here to watch a movie! She hadn’t just walked in here off the street on a whim either, a traitorous voice from the recesses of her mind piped up, but she tried to quash it.

 

“Do you want me to leave?” she asked, unsure if she was actually offering.

 

Someone, maybe the same person as before, shushed her again and Beth dimly felt amused that she’d been concerned about some stranger hitting on her during the film. These fanatics probably would’ve put paid to that in seconds!

 

She was also beginning to feel the familiar blossoming of rabid irritation. Why was she the only one being hushed?! Just because Rio’s pitch lent itself to clandestine conversation better than hers, just because he oozed some kind of don’t-fuck-with-me vibe that she couldn’t emulate.

 

Before she understood quite what was happening, his hand was on her wrist and he’d stood. “C’mon,” he insisted, and she barely had time to grab her bag before she was stumbling along with him as he strode out of the room and began walking her down a hallway she hadn’t been through before.

 

The pressure on her wrist was firm but not painful. She could’ve broken out of his grasp with ease probably, though she had absolutely no idea what kind of response attempting to do so might have prompted for him, but her fervent curiosity forbade her from giving it a go.

 

Besides, she thought with morbid humour, if he was going to kill her it’d probably be nicer for her family if her body was discovered in some theatre back room and not splayed right in the middle of something that sounded distinctly like a pornography festival.

 

Once he’d dragged her into an office, his office she decided absently, noting the décor, he let her wrist go. She rubbed at it idly, she didn’t think it would bruise, even with her peach-like skin, but she felt hot where he’d been touching her, almost like she’d been branded.

 

He glared at her in obvious annoyance for a tract of seconds, then flopped into a chair with a sigh, a hand flying to his temple then over his hair.

 

Beth waited for him to speak, nerves buzzing through her entire body, making her skin sing. She somehow doubted that he’d brought her back here simply to chivalrously save her from being shushed.

 

Running through what he might ask, or say, or _do_ was putting her very much on edge, but the longer the silence stretched the more any of those options paled in comparison to this yawning quiet continuing on forever, perhaps swallowing her whole.

 

She vaguely considered sitting down too, registering a sofa nearby behind her, but found that she quite liked the feeling of towering over him for a change. In her memories he was often looming, with her shrinking beneath him.

 

“I was looking forward to watching the film,” she said eventually, fighting to keep her tone bland.

 

He looked up at that, exasperation mixing with some unnameable emotion across his features.

 

“Maybe Mer can organise you a private screening.” One of his brows wiggled but she only frowned slightly. She didn’t understand his joke, if there was one.

 

She didn’t understand anything that had happened, not for a long, long time. But, hey, if he was in the mood for answering questions…

 

“Did you make a deal with Turner?” she tried, feeling strangely emboldened.

 

He didn’t say anything, but that was a _duh, obviously_ look on his face if ever she’d seen one. She tried to bite down on the feeling of not being good enough to impress him, he wasn’t her teacher any more, if he’d ever really been that. And, whatever, it felt nice to be right about something!

 

“What are the terms?” she pressed. “Is he still coming after me?”

 

“ _My_ business.” His words were slow, his tone something akin to venomous, but his gaze wouldn’t let her eyes go. “Ain’t none of yours.”

 

She nodded agreeably, fighting to keep her posture still, to hold against the desire to squirm as he kept his eyes on her. “It’s my business if he’s- if someone’s coming after me.”

 

Rio sighed again. “Not that you deserve good news from me but… Turner ain’t concerned with you no more. He’s onto bigger and better. Thinks you’re a sweet little housewife who got in over her head, that he was wrong ‘bout you.” His tone seemed to insinuate that he knew better.

 

Beth let out a large sigh of relief before the wheels in her head started turning again. “What if I said I don’t believe you? That I think you’re trying to lull me into a false sense of security?”

 

“Sounds smarter than your usual.” He was grinning now, wide. “Believe me, don’t believe me. I don’t care.”

 

That stung, the way he said it. She was tempted to turn on her heels and walk out. But- he’d brought her here, had practically lured her in with a siren song and a gentle touch.

 

“You wanted me to come here though… didn’t you?”

 

He didn’t answer her, not right away, but she thought she saw his expression soften up, almost imperceptibly. When he did reply, he seemed to be answering a different question, “I need you to stay out of my business.” It was said with a tone of total finality.

 

She tried to pull her thoughts together. He wasn’t talking about her being here, was he? This place seemed legitimate, and he hadn’t seemed worried about admitting he owned it, didn’t seem all that eager to throw her out. Which must mean… “You’re still running things?” she gasped. “Right under Turner’s nose?”

 

“What I just say?!” His nostrils flared in anger and she should have been more scared, she should have been but it was so hard to remember the ways that their lines had been redrawn.

 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just – just be careful, okay?”

 

He rolled his eyes at that. “Be careful,” he mocked, doing what she felt was a truly appalling impression of her, pitch way too high and voice overly breathy. “Ma, you do _remember_ the part where you shot me, yeah?”

 

She tried to keep her face blank at that, hoped she hadn’t blanched, but if the movements of his eyebrows were anything to go by she hadn’t been all that successful. She wasn’t ready to banter with him about that, she _couldn’t_.

 

She wasn’t feeling too steady on her feet, but she focussed on a spot on the wall behind him as she asked, “Are you going to kill me?”

 

“You want me to?”

 

When she dragged her eyes back over to him his face flickered too fast for her to read, but there’d been a strange openness resting upon it for just a moment.

 

“No.”

 

“You gonna shoot me again?”

 

“No!” It was out before she’d had time to think about it.

 

He hmmed non-committally. “Might be I need to think on a different punishment for you.”

 

A vision of him leering at her, whip and restraints in hand, popped into Beth’s mind out of nowhere, but with monumental forbearance she pushed it away almost immediately.

 

“’Sides, in a way you kinda did me a favour. Not a lotta people expect to be taken out by a dead man.”

 

She considered that for a moment, the thought of him jumping out of the shadows yelling something like ‘Surprise, bitch!’ was almost funny. But no, she couldn’t imagine him wasting a huge tactical advantage like that, even given his love of dramatic entrances. She tried to put herself in his shoes.

 

“I suppose you don’t need to actually do everything ‘you’ do?” she said. “Is that how you’re getting away with whatever without Turner knowing? You’re the puppet master, pulling the strings?”

 

“C’mon sweetheart, let it go. Don’t wanna be too smart for your own good. Curiosity killed the cat, y’know?”

 

She nodded but somehow she couldn’t prevent herself from blurting out, “Cats have nine lives.” It was stupid to antagonise him further, she knew that, he _seemed_ at least to be being more than fair, but somewhere along the way she’d internalised this dance of theirs and couldn’t help continuing the steps.

 

“Me too, maybe.” Rio said. “Think you’d get so lucky?”

 

His voice dipped on that last word, and his eyes were boring holes into hers again. There was something almost sultry there, there was she was sure of it, but also a clear warning.

 

Suddenly, embarrassingly, her stomach rumbled loudly. She blushed, and in that moment remembered that these days she was a lost, harried person much more frequently than this other, largely forgotten version of herself that she was masquerading as.

 

“Sorry!” she gasped, flailing. “I think I really need to eat something.”

 

“That your way of asking me to dinner?”

 

“What.” Beth only managed to grind out the one word, flatly. Her head was spinning. She floundered for something to say so she could make a swift exit, with some tiny sliver of dignity still intact. “I can’t imagine being seen with me in public would be good for the image of whatever deal you’ve got going with the feds.” She smiled sweetly at him but she wasn’t fishing, not really, not any more. She was just trying to counter his teasing.

 

He genuinely seemed to consider that though, head tilting and eyes scrunching. “Might be best for both of us to avoid being linked, yeah. But don’t think it’d be the end of the world if _someone_ did clock us together neither. People know we’ve got,” here he paused, allowing a grin to frame the next word, “ _history_. Still, good to be cautious. How ‘bout we go to yours? We can just take your car, yeah?”

 

Beth must have nodded, presumably mutely. Later she’d have trouble remembering what exactly had happened, but she had to have signalled agreement somehow and she almost certainly hadn’t had the wherewithal to speak further.

 

Their walk to her car passed in a silent blur, with her reeling in even more confusion than before. She couldn’t grasp what he wanted, and she didn’t understand if she’d actually, ill-advisedly, at some point in their whirlwind conversation extended an invitation into her home to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am extremely sick so I hope that these are in fact sentences!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If he was after a reaction, she was determined to bore him.

He’d made it to her car before her, of course he had, striding off ahead. By the time she’d caught up he was leaning against the driver’s door, _her_ door. While she made her tentative final approach he thrust a hand out of his hoody in her direction, clearly demanding the keys, with an expression on his face that brooked no argument.

 

She sighed audibly, perhaps louder than entirely necessary considering she really didn’t feel up to driving, but scrambled in her purse to find them. She relinquished her keys, careful to drop them into his waiting palm without making contact with his skin, before ambling round to the car’s other side.

 

She wondered, with a somehow detached curiosity, whether forking over her car, or allowing this man into her home, might not be a monumentally stupid idea. True, he hadn’t seemed overly invested in murder right now, but fraternising with someone with an avowed need for revenge against her didn’t quite seem like the smartest move.

 

Still he’d had months, the element of surprise, and a historical lack of compunction about entering her house uninvited. Maybe her actions were largely irrelevant. Maybe she was mere flotsam on the tide of his whims.

 

So she tried to wrack her brain, to recall if she’d ever been driven anywhere by him? They’d hung out in cars plenty, she could bring to mind a couple of choice examples easily, but she didn’t think she had a strong idea of whether he was a good driver – at least other than when he was driving his kid around and teasingly allowing her to follow.

 

On paper at least, she might have just agreed to be driven by a man with a glaring death wish. He kept on putting a gun in her hands after all, with himself, unarmed, pissing her off directly in her path; he kept pointedly not killing her. Was there much to rule out the likelihood of him veering into oncoming traffic, taking the both of them out?!

 

Once the ride got underway though, it soon became apparent that that was something she needn’t have worried about. Rio turned out to be an obnoxiously careful driver, eyes almost always stuck to the roads, speed never once rising above the limit.

 

Their journey passed in near-total silence, though this one felt a little less tense, more pregnant with possibility, than the one they’d shared back in his office. She thought she heard him chuckle at her ginger rustling of the cereal bar’s wrapper, before she started taking delicate bites, needing something to both occupy her and fill her stomach (with her mentally discarding the apple as an option on the grounds of eating volume and visual awkwardness). She caught him muttering under his breath at shitty drivers a couple of times too but didn’t react too noticeably, eager to keep the peace.

 

When they’d arrived back at her place and he’d handed back her keys, Beth once again avoiding his hand – insistently grabbing them via a large keyring, they both furtively looked around before exiting the car. With no visible foot traffic and apparently no surveillance present they deemed it safe to walk up together.

 

Beth noticed that he’d pulled his hood up, though it still barely covered the crown of his head. The irritating blast of fondness that she felt on being confronted with that unexpected, familiar image _hurt_. She had to turn away from him, began walking up to her door without glancing at him further, to stop herself from saying something extremely foolish.

 

He hung back a little, not crowding her, as she unlocked and opened her front door. She didn’t quite fumble, but it was a near thing, she had to force precision into her every movement. Her awareness of his presence just beyond her was too terrifying, too thrilling, too absurdly _ordinary_.

 

Once they were inside she offered him a drink, which he declined quietly. She filled a large glass with tap water and gulped plenty down, too fast. She quickly pivoted, began assessing some groceries visible on the counter before looking in the fridge too.

 

“There anything you don’t eat?” Her actual tone didn’t totally sound like the idle one she’d been aiming for but focussing on distracting, practical tasks sure felt good. She turned to look at him to add, “Other than a dislike of sandwiches.”

 

“Not really.” One of his shoulders moved, barely, in a half-hearted shrug.

 

“So you’re not gluten intolerant or something?”

 

He looked vaguely horrified at that, and shook his head with narrowed eyes.

 

“How about a frittata?” she suggested. “It’s not _really_ a dinner dish I guess but it’ll be fairly quick?” She could tell she sounded almost apologetic, and just this side of not babbling, against her best efforts.

 

“A’ight.” His nod was as lacklustre as his earlier shrug.

 

Something certainly close to irritation had begun to flow through her veins. Why had Rio insinuated himself _here_ if he was just going to be taciturn and uninformative? Was he really this hard up for food options? Had he never learnt to cook?! Did he really just enjoy fucking with her so much that getting her to make him dinner was a fun exercise in button pushing and reaction watching?

 

She decided to ignore him in lieu of gathering ingredients and making a start on food prep. If he was after a reaction, she was determined to bore him.

 

Somehow, amidst the steps, she almost forgot he was there. His voice, especially given that it came suddenly from the other side of the kitchen than the one she’d left him lounging against the cupboards in, startled her.

 

“No liquor cabinet no more?”

 

“Oh, I’m not as fun as I was.” It took her a second to compose herself before she could say it, and it came with a wry smile that she was almost certain he couldn’t see.

 

“Doubt that.”

 

She scoffed at that, though it sounded almost a little pleased.

 

The quiet they shared as they ate seemed like their least oppressive yet of the day, not quite companionable but not one fitting for nemeses either. There was a moment when they’d both pretty much finished up when she suddenly realised that she’d been gazing at him, a little lost. It wasn’t that she was stupid enough to think that he was about to kiss her, it was just that she’d somehow, however momentarily, forgotten that that was absolutely not something they did any more.

 

Now that she was less concerned with him having a death wish she was even surer that what had happened that night, _what she’d done_ , had put a permanent damper on whatever the thing between them once was.

 

She cleared her throat before asking, too plaintively, “What do you _want_?”

 

Opening those floodgates felt like a terrible idea even as she was doing it, but she couldn’t keep torturing herself, could she? Beth had to _know_ , and her need to stop thinking about his lips was becoming violently pressing.

 

“What you think?” he countered.

 

She tried to swallow a sigh, hoping to keep it inaudible.

 

“Well,” she started, sounding unwilling, “I believe you may’ve mentioned something about wanting me to stay away from the, uh, extracurricular aspects of your business.” She managed to make it sound jokey, unsure if that was a good plan, as she counted her points by holding up her fingers. “And you wanted to… um, something was said about punishment.”

 

She blushed, _obviously_ she did, his eyes and the repeated internal litany of things to absolutely not think about very much hindering more than helping.

 

His face remained expectant, she tried to think what else he might be after, visualising her board.

 

Her heart had begun sinking before she said it. “Money.” She held a third finger up. “We still owe you.”

 

That earned her a more lively nod.

 

“I’d kind of forgotten about that. We assumed the debt was was cleared when you were all...” She searched her vocabulary for a suitable euphemism. “Gone.”

 

“Boo.”

 

Beth closed her eyes for a second, allowing her hand to pinch at her forehead. “No, you’re right,” she said, acting as if he’d made a rather more compelling and detailed point. “We still owe you.” It hardly felt worth arguing with him, even if she’d felt strong armed into some of that debt, even if she doubted that Ruby and Annie could possibly owe him as much as he’d claimed.

 

“It’s just… We don’t have that kind of money right now. And if you don’t want me near any of your businesses, which I’m not arguing with you about by the way! I’m not sure we can get our hands on that sort of amount and-”

 

“Nah, it’s cool. Don’t need it all at once. Sure we can work out an instalment plan.”

 

Rio informed her of a monthly number he’d be expecting, with a start date a little way off, to which Beth readily agreed, it seemed eminently doable.

 

She wasn’t sure if he actually needed the income, if maybe running a criminal enterprise right under the feds’ noses closed enough money making doors to him that even her small contributions would seem worthwhile. Or maybe he was still insistently trying to teach her some lesson.

 

Whatever the reason, she couldn’t help but thrill slightly at the idea of being, if not quite back in business with him then at least in a region adjacent to that.

 

The importance of being useful, the safety that that could provide, was a lesson that she’d first learnt long ago, and one which had been reiterated and re-validated to her over and over again. With her parents, with Dean and her resulting in-laws, with the PTA moms, with Rio along her come up – Beth knew that demonstrating that she had value was the best way to stay out of danger.

 

Suddenly, Rio rose from his seat at the kitchen island, started moving dishes to the sink. She was mesmerised by his movements, then wondered if he was trying to get away from her. Oh god, had she been staring again?

 

She felt that dull, aching embarrassment, which had been flowing around her all evening, finally reach fever pitch. There was no way he wasn’t aware of the effect he still had on her, he’d always been able to read her like an open book. Desire hadn’t exactly been at the forefront of her mind since he’d popped back into her life, though it hadn’t been entirely absent either, terror and confusion having claimed centre stage.

 

But having him here in her space, with them so clearly and intimately alone, talking again a little like old times, feeling fairly convinced that he wanted to keep her around at least for the foreseeable future… The wires in her brain didn’t just feel like they were getting crossed, they were short circuiting all over the place. There wasn’t much evidence to prevent her from thinking that she might have accidentally time travelled back a year and change.

 

“You don’t have to do that,” she told his back shyly, getting up and wandering closer to the sink.

 

He just shrugged and continued rinsing a moment longer, but then shut off the water before he turned to face her, expression impassive.

 

“So what’s all that about?” he asked, gesturing with his head to her living room.

 

It took her a moment to catch up, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from getting lost in the angles of his face, but then she realised that he must have caught sight of all of the sewing machines and the costume equipment. Maybe he’d taken it in when they’d first entered and she’d rushed to hydrate, or perhaps he’d been wandering more than she’d noticed while she’d cooked. She’d been a little too flustered all evening to really track where his eyes might have roved.

 

“New business,” she replied shortly.

 

“Cool. Was worried you’d become one of them furries for a sec.”

 

That startled a laugh from her, which brought her an answering grin.

 

Suddenly, against her better judgement, though she wasn’t too sure that Rio had ever had much quality time with that aspect of her, she began explaining the thinking behind the new venture. How she and Ruby and Annie had brainstormed on the subject of what they were good at, their mommy skills, how they’d discarded cleaning (too boring!) and cooking (too risky!) and finally settled on this costume idea.

 

She realised that she’d tipped her hand, though she’d only been talking about their desire to start a legitimate _business_ , not a front, when Rio asked, “Mike help out with the funny money supplies?”

 

She gaped up at him, only then becoming aware of how far she’d pushed into his space while excitedly explaining and gesturing, he was practically trapped between her and the sink.

 

She took a step back, along with fortifying breath. It hardly seemed worth lying to him about it – possibly he'd known already, or maybe he’d just guessed. Ruby had been right, it couldn’t be difficult information for him to get, or figure out.

 

“Maybe,” she hedged.

 

“Cool.”

 

Was that… was that _it_? He was _just standing there_ , leaning back, eyeballing her. She kept waiting for him to mock her, or demand a percentage, or point out that he could hold it over her head but nothing was forthcoming.

 

Her neck felt like it was starting to develop a crick from craning up at him like this, but she had no desire to stop. The urge to press against him was becoming stronger and stronger and-

 

His cell pinging loudly brought her back to reality swiftly. He groped for it in his pocket, then his eyes lowered as he read and replied to something rapidly. Beth enjoyed the chance to look at his face with his attention elsewhere, but sadly the opportunity didn’t last long.

 

“Gotta go, my ride’s here.”

 

“Huh? Did you book an Uber?”

 

“ _Yeah_ ,” he retorted, the dripping sarcasm extremely evident. “Great idea to leave digital records of my whereabouts.” He shook his head like he’d rarely heard anything so ridiculous.

 

She walked him towards the front door. He pulled a flip phone from his back pocket and handed it to her.

 

“New burner?” she asked, though she couldn’t imagine what other possible explanation there could be. At least he simply nodded at that, didn’t mock her for asking another dumb question. She was so baffled by the entire encounter she was impressed she still had the power of speech at all.

 

She wondered if he always carried spare phones around, or if this was just for her, if he’d had an inkling that he’d be seeing her tonight.

 

“For arranging your instalments. We ain’t gonna be meeting in parks. You’ll just be dropping it. Maybe storage units, PO boxes, that kinda thing. The keys’ll be sent to you in advance, each time. Maybe change up the cars you arrive in, yeah? Can’t be always rocking up in that mama van, ‘k? Too conspicuous.”

 

Well that seemed like more than he’d said to her in any one go for… a _while_. She struggled to process it. If he wanted her dropping money off to places, rather than to people, if it wasn’t going to be counted and checked… did that mean that he trusted her to get it done? And that advice about the cars – could he actually be looking out for her?

 

She tried to remember that he was looking out for _himself_ but he was talking again.

 

“Don’t fuck this up, mm? The money’s gotta be appearing monthly, clockwork-like.”

 

She straightened her back and nodded. She could do this.

 

“Oh, and Elizabeth?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

He unlocked the front door, pausing with his hand there. “It ain’t gonna be me on the other end of that,” he gestured at the phone in her hand. As he opened the door and stepped outside he added, “So don’t be trying to sext me or nothing.”

 

With a parting wink he strode off towards a dark car, not his, she noted with the small part of her mind that wasn’t actively engaged in irked astonishment. She quickly shut the door, a shade too firmly, and continued to watch his progress to the passenger side through the peephole. She figured the driver was probably one of his boys, he must have texted whoever earlier to come pick him up without her noticing.

 

Once the car was out of sight and she’d locked up, she headed straight to bed. She didn’t turn out the lights or finish tidying up or even check that her curtains were properly shut, just stripped off and flopped onto her covers.

 

It wasn’t long at all before her fingers were playing at her centre, bringing her to an almost vicious climax. If there was a name on her lips as she orgasmed she told herself that it didn’t matter, that it was simply fantasy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rio strikes me an extremely smug good driver (maybe the worst backseat driver of all time? unless that's Beth!)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’d been kind of hoping to get away with doing it over the phone, but when she made her first announcement to Annie she heard it echoed in her sister’s stage whisper: “Beth says she’s done some things!” At Ruby’s muttered, “Oh god… hives! Hives!” in the background, Beth knew she was done for.

Of course the next day she had to tell it all to the girls. Well, almost everything, Beth hardly felt that her masturbatory habits needed to become common knowledge.

 

She’d been kind of hoping to get away with doing it over the phone, but when she made her first announcement to Annie she heard it echoed in her sister’s stage whisper: “Beth says she’s done _some things_!” At Ruby’s muttered, “Oh god… hives! _Hives_!” in the background, Beth knew she was done for.

 

It transpired that they were at Ruby’s together, facilitating a Sara-Sadie hang, but they were insistent that they would be round to see Beth as soon as Stan was back from teaching his piano lesson and ready to take over with the kids.

 

“We’ll be there shortly,” Annie said, a little haughtily. She barely gave Beth enough time to make a grumbling noise of acknowledgement before hanging up on her.

 

With Dean picking up the kids from their sleepovers today at least Beth had an empty nest, she knew they’d be able to speak freely. It was just that she wasn’t looking forward to seeing their _faces_ while she explained everything.

 

She started bustling, fixating on making her home as presentable as possible. When she dug into her purse for her favourite pen, idly remembering a couple of things she wanted to add to her shopping list, her hand bumped against her apple from the night before. Pulling it out, she saw that it looked nasty and bruised, with a disgusted face and an irritated exhale she quickly disposed of it.

 

*

 

At first Ruby and Annie seemed pretty annoyed with her for keeping secrets, and made her swear not to do it again, even if she thought her ideas sounded like batshit conspiracy theories.

 

Annie at least was fairly easily distracted by how impressed she was at Beth’s sleuthing, and particularly at how she’d hit the nail on the head with her recollection that Rio liked movies. She then got a little bogged down in interrogating Beth as to whether Rio had seemed like he _required_ an invitation into the house.

 

“He’s not a vampire, Annie,” Ruby moaned, to little effect.

 

They tried to talk her out of doing the cash drops too, thought it sounded too risky, but Beth held firm. She was adamant that it was far more unsafe to renege on a deal.

 

They covered all their usual bases – he was likely trying to set her up, Turner might well be watching, this was a vulnerable time what with them trying to get the new business off the ground.

 

It wasn’t that Beth disagreed, it was just that she was fairly sure that while she remained useful she probably wasn’t going to be killed off. So, useful she was eager to make herself.

 

“If he’s playing me… well, I’ll cross that bridge when I make it there, okay? If he thinks I’ve bought whatever he’s selling, that gets us more time at least.”

 

“ _If_ he’s playing you?” Ruby probed, though mildly. “You don’t think it’s weird that a man you shot and left for dead wants to work with you? Hell, wants to eat with you!?”

 

“No, I think it’s very weird!” Beth snapped. “But he’s… he’s weird.”

 

“Maybe he’s a ghost?” Annie offered.

 

“He’s not a ghost,” Ruby said, exasperation creeping into her voice.

 

“A ghost with unfinished business!”

 

“He’s not a ghost,” Beth said firmly. “He’s very… _solid_.”

 

Annie looked extremely mournful all of a sudden, and Beth felt compelled to ask what was wrong, though she had a sneaking suspicion that doing so would backfire badly.

 

“Oh, nothing really,” Annie began with an obviously forced joviality. “Just sad I’m going to see my sister die from the after effects of protracted dong fog! The worst part is it could be avoided if she’d just take some advice, but she won’t.”

 

“What?!” demanded Beth.

 

“Dude! Lord knows I’m happier than just about anybody that you’re done with Deansie. And I’m so glad you got dicked down good-”

 

“Well,” corrected Beth.

 

“Huh?”

 

“Ah,” said Ruby softly. “Rio dicked her down _well_. Assuming dick _can_ be a verb?” Her brows furrowed softly.

 

Annie shrugged them off. “But! I think suddenly having good sex must have been too much for you and it scrambled your brain. You are incapable of rational thought when it comes to this guy!”

 

“Oh you’re one to talk!” Beth replied, but it came out sounding more sad than bitchy.

 

Annie’s expression looked a little unkind for a split second, but then she reined it back in.

 

“ _Yeah_ , actually,” she said. “I’m just trying to share the benefit of my very bad experiences with you. Maybe it’s just something chemical but… Look, if you want to be able to go up against this guy? If there’s some kind of power struggle or whatever… I don’t think he can be the last person you boned.”

 

Beth nodded her assent, it made some kind of sense after all. If there was some way she could stop _reacting_ to him like that she probably needed to explore it.

 

When they brought up the dating profile again though, she baulked.

 

“I’m _old_ ,” she protested. “I don’t want to go on a date because a database said I should. I’m not saying I’m not open to the idea of meeting someone I guess, but I need real human connection.”

 

“Beth you’ve barely been leaving the house for things that aren’t absolutely necessary,” Annie argued. “And real human connection, hmm? You got cranky about the two of us coming over, and we’re your favourite people!”

 

“I do _so_ go out! I’ve been going swimming and-”

 

“Oh yeah, when’s the last time you made it the pool?” Ruby’s smile was a little _too_ agreeable for Beth’s liking.

 

“The last few weeks have been pretty crazy,” Beth said with a frown.

 

The looks Annie and Ruby gave her were fairly pointed, and they had both crossed their arms over their respective chests.

 

“Humour me,” Annie insisted. “At least give someone a try. Make me believe you wouldn’t bend over backwards for any chance to get close to Mr Gang Friend again.”

 

Beth bit her tongue to prevent herself from supplying Rio’s name, ensuring that a rude retort to Annie’s whole point didn’t slip out either. She tried to appear unaffected.

 

Finally she rolled her eyes but nodded too, handing her phone over to one of Annie’s grabby hands.

 

Annie crowed happily and immediately started poking at the screen, as Ruby clapped encouragingly.

 

“I think I’m going to start smoking again,” Beth announced, in a not very subtle attempt to change the subject.

 

“Okay,” Annie said distractedly, focussed on the phone, around the same moment that Ruby yelled, “Ew, gross!”

 

“I’m serious,” Beth continued, “I’m so… bleargh!” She pulled a face and made wobbly jazz hands. “I need some kind of stress relief, and I still don’t think booze and I are exactly a winning combo.”

 

“You’re not an alcoholic,” Annie said, finally looking up. “I’ve known enough drunks to be able to say.”

 

“Shit got kinda weird for a bit back there.”

 

“You were mourning, you were in shock,” Ruby told her. “That’s when stuff gets weird.”

 

Beth bobbed her head, though she didn’t think those words were accurate enough terms for what she’d gone through.

 

“With everything that’s going on, I just feel like I need my head straight. I need to be in control.”

 

“Just admit you’re a control freak and move on,” Annie admonished, her attention mostly back on the dating profile she was creating.

 

That had Beth bristling. “ _Rio_ always seems in control. Don’t you want me to be able to compete? To have a chance to work out what the hell is going on and make smart moves, hmm?”

 

“You don’t have to be like him,” Ruby soothed.

 

Beth opened her mouth as if to say something, but then shut it again. She felt equally compelled to yell both, ‘Yes I do!’ and ‘I know I can’t!’.

 

“But B, if you think nicotine would help, I’ll support you. Just not around the kids, ‘k?”

 

“Ta-da!” interrupted Annie. “Take a look before I post it!” she ordered, offering Beth’s cell back to her.

 

Annie’d chosen a picture with more cleavage on show then Beth would’ve gone for, but it was a nice photograph where she was smiling, looking relaxed. Annie had dutifully captured her interests too, not editorialising by adding anything about monster trucks or home brewing, and Beth was pleased to see that even her cinephilia had been included this time.

 

“What do you want me to put for ‘interested in’?” Annie asked, pointing to that section.

 

Beth’s forehead crinkled, “Men!” she said with an insistent tinkling laugh.

 

“You sure?” When Beth’s only response was a quirked brow, Annie sighed and continued, “I’m just saying… for a long ass time anyone looking at your dating history could’ve assumed you were Dean-sexual, which, _gross_. You’ve changed a lot since you were a teenager.”

 

“You do spend quite a lot of time talking about the relative hotness of women,” Ruby not-quite teased.

 

“Well maybe I’m insecure cos whatever man I’m… _seeing_ tends to go around groping gorgeous young women! Around cars, for some reason!” Her face had warmed up.

 

“Okay, okay,” Annie soothed, one palm up. “I’ll leave it as men. I’m just saying, keep that thought in your back pocket, this doesn’t work out maybe you’ve got options, that’s all.”

 

“I’m not sure I’m ready for any more revelations right now,” Beth said in a small, forlorn voice. “I’m already at Bethcon 1.”

 

The other two both chortled at that.

 

“Discussion tabled,” agreed Ruby.

 

“Okay, it’s going live!” Annie announced with relish, prodding the button on the screen. “Maybe this’ll get you way better stress relief than a pack of smokes.”

 

Beth stuck her head in her hands, but Ruby was quick to peel them away from her face.

 

“Come on,” she said brightly. “We can help you choose someone.”

 

“No one like, uh,” Annie fumbled, “um… no neck tats, yeah?”

 

Beth nodded glumly.

 

“And no one who likes like Dean either, eww!”

 

*

 

Eventually, after much berating, Beth’d messaged litigator_1972 back. He turned out to have a name, Lawrence, unsurprisingly stated he was a lawyer, and was apparently age-appropriate.

 

“He looks young,” Beth said suspiciously, zooming in on a picture. “Doesn’t he look young?” she demanded. “Do you think these pictures are fake? Is this a… a catfish? Oh god, I’m going to be murdered aren’t I, and it’s going to be so _mundane_ , and all with your blessings….”

 

Ruby peered at the photo, “Hey, black don’t crack!” she said with a grin. “Besides,” she added, tweaking Beth’s nose, “you think you look your age?”

 

Beth smiled at the compliment.

 

“Men can moisturise too!” Annie announced. “Equal rights!”

 

Beth wanted to complain a little further, about how he was wearing a suit in almost every photo, for one, but she’d promised to give this a chance and she didn’t want to annoy Annie and Ruby too much. So she agreed to a date with Lawrence later in the week, her heart up in her throat, before swiftly closing the app.

 

“Going to be a busy week,” she pointed out with false cheerfulness. “Don’t forget we’ve got dinner with Amber and her girlfriend on Wednesday, you saw the messages?”

 

Two heads nodded at her.

 

“Where are we doing dinner?” Annie asked.

 

“Well I was thinking here-” she began, but then remembered they’d been ragging on her for not getting out enough and flushed. “But if you want to go out…?”

 

“Here’s good,” said Ruby, with an expressive glare at Annie.

 

“Sure, baby steps.” Annie sighed. But then brightened up, “You do give excellent dinner party!”

 

“And we’re going over the paperwork as soon as it’s ready, maybe even by Thursday,” Beth continued. “We’ll be fully up and running soon! Which’ll help with those monthly instalments… Look I know we’re paying out a chunk to Amber, which we weren’t expecting, and Rio’s going to be skimming some but I still think this could _really work_ and it shouldn’t be long before we’re raking it in. I’m thinking about getting a storage unit of our own for the profits…?”

 

Beth drifted to an early close, though she had more to say, something in Ruby’s face giving her pause.

 

“Yeah…. About that,” Ruby said, voice sounding _way_ too light. “I think I’m out.”

 

Beth and Annie both stared at her, Annie’s dismay instantly obvious.

 

“Is this about the protracted dong fog?” Annie asked. “Because I hear ya, but I’m working on that.”

 

“It’s not that. Well not _just_ that. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I just can’t picture what Stan would think if he found out.”

 

“I get that,” Annie said, reaching for Ruby’s hand to squeeze it gently. “But you’re still going to need money, surely Stan could understand? What if Sara needs medication again, what if-”

 

She was distracted by the sound of Ruby’s sob.

 

“Hey, if you want out? You are _out_ ,” Beth said decisively. “And if you ever do need back in, we will sort it.”

 

Ruby beamed at her.

 

“But just cos you’re not involved in the decisions and the washing, just cos you’re not getting a cut of that, that doesn’t mean you can’t be earning...”

 

“True!” Annie picked up. “We still need _all_ the costumes! If you’re still willing to work with us, we can pay you an excellent wage for making them. You wouldn’t need a billion shift jobs, and this could work around your schedule.”

 

Ruby smiled, considering. “Yeah, that could definitely work.”

 

“We can have a don’t ask don’t tell policy about the biz,” Annie added with a twinkle in her eye.

 

“And if you’re just working for us, well for Amber, I don’t think Stan’ll be too suspicious,” Beth said. “Whereas if you rocked up tomorrow and told him you were starting a new company, having never mentioned it before, I think he’d’ve definitely found it super shady.”

 

You knew this was coming?” Ruby asked, after a slight pause.

 

“Maybe I had a hunch,” Beth tried not to smile, “I _know_ you.”

 

Ruby hummed in agreement.

 

*

 

Later, much later, after her girls were long gone, Beth had spread out on her bed, amidst her things. She could’ve gone to the desk in the office, or anywhere in the house really, but somehow she still found it easiest to think in her little sanctuary.

 

Reading back over her chat with Lawrence made her almost want to whine with frustration. He seemed nice, normal, and her lack of interest in that was a little galling.

 

Had she been irrevocably changed by her fling with Rio? Did she really crave excitement and danger so much?

 

She turned her attention to her burner phone instead, reminding herself that she needed to pick up a charger for it at some point. It had still not received a single message, though that wasn’t too surprising given that her initial delivery wasn’t scheduled for a while yet. Beth wondered how she’d receive the first key – if it would just appear or if there’d be a message alerting her to its presence.

 

She’d double checked, there were no numbers saved to the phone, it was completely empty. There was no one she could reach out to and ask. Not that she wanted to, the memory of Rio’s lascivious teasing at the end of their last interaction still made her blood freeze.

 

Glancing at the board instead, she had to accede that Ruby and Annie might have had a point or two. Sure, she’d _maybe_ been able to guess his nationality correctly and ascertain his hobbies, but that didn’t mean she really _knew_ him, she couldn’t predict what he’d do, she didn’t know what, if much of anything, constituted his limits. And she needed to keep that in mind, damn it!

 

How used to getting his own way was he? Had he grown up entitled and spoilt? _Could_ he have had a genuine soft spot for her, and was there any way that’d possibly survived the shooting too, or was he simply an extremely effective manipulator? Was she being a perfect idiot, heading right into one of his traps again?

 

When her eyes fell to the postcard she reddened and quickly moved to put it away. Beth vengefully decided she’d be wearing granny panties and her dowdiest bra to her date with Lawrence. Sure, her girls could force her to connect with someone, and maybe that wouldn’t be the worst thing, perhaps that was something she needed.

 

But there were some things she was in no way ready for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beth Boland said smokers rights!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby and Annie were already there ‘helping’, not that Beth could see what use they were being other than testing her reflexes as she kept having to slap their hands away from the dishes she was preparing, when the door went.

Beth hadn’t hosted a dinner party in what felt like aeons. Such events had been a mainstay of her and Dean’s early married life, before the kids completely filled every corner of the house, before he’d apparently begun seeking comfort elsewhere, before the wedge between them had grown so huge it would have needed a seat of its own to accommodate it during dinner.

 

So she’d become almost gleeful over the prospect of hosting Amber and her girlfriend. It was going to be Beth’s first ladies’ only dinner party too. There’d be no husbands grouping together and wandering off to discuss business, or tits, or cigars, or whatever it’d been. Not that this wouldn’t be largely a meeting amongst business associates, just that it’d be a genuine breath of fresh air to not have a gathering of its kind divide inevitably along gender lines.

 

Sometimes, looking back, Beth couldn’t _believe_ some of what had been normalised in her marriage, it sounded like it was from another era. It certainly wasn’t what she wanted for life going forwards, nor what she had in mind for Emma or Janie.

 

At the time, she hadn’t minded the idea of going all in – believing that both she and Dean were doing everything they did for their _family_. She’d not been much bothered by feeling a tad cliché, not when she’d been working for the collective good of their little unit. She’d genuinely thought they were above the petty concerns that a merry Ruby or stoned Annie might raise in a whisper to her – did Dean really respect her? Did she not want more of a life outside of the home and kids? Didn’t falling into antiquated gender roles trouble her?

 

But when the reality of just how much of a selfish, cheating, useless prick Dean was had crashed into her, that world view had ripped apart, fast. Maybe the part that had stung the most was how she’d _shrunk_ herself and never even thought to resent it because she’d trusted that Dean really could look after the family, the finances, the future. She’d let her kids believe it was okay, that it was normal, for daddy alone to be in charge, to make all the important decisions. _No more_.

 

*

Ruby and Annie were already there ‘helping’, not that Beth could see what use they were being other than testing her reflexes as she kept having to slap their hands away from the dishes she was preparing, when the door went.

 

Beth, a sincere smile adorning her face, walked over to open it herself. Her face froze a little though as she took in the tableau on her doorstep. Amber was there, of course, a bottle of wine in her left hand, with her right hand attached to a familiar person. Beth smoothed her hands over her apron, which covered a pretty blue dress, quickly and forced her sinews out of shock and into hostess mode.

 

“Hello Amber, hello Meredith,” she said brightly.

 

“Hey, I know you!” Meredith beamed. “From the cinema.”

 

“Yes, I’m not sure if I properly introduced myself then? I’m Beth,” she began moving her hand as if to shake, but then noticed the padded envelope in Meredith’s hand.

 

Meredith tracked the movements of Beth’s hand, and offered the envelope out to her. “This was on your porch.”

 

“Oh, err, thanks.” Beth took the item from her. “Well, come in,” she said with an extra large smile, making room.

 

Amber introduced Meredith to Annie and Ruby joyfully, before Beth broke in to explain, funny story, that she and Meredith had actually met before. She desperately hoped the loaded glare she gave Annie and Ruby, over the younger women’s heads, appropriately conveyed ‘we will talk about it _later_ ’ as well as ‘do _not_ interrogate her about her boss’.

 

Beth quickly excused herself for a cigarette outside, taking the extremely tacky ashtray she’d dug out of the garage from its new place near the back door to the picnic table in the garden with her. She finally eyed the envelope she was still holding once she was out there. There was a frankly indecipherable character on the front, but she just _knew_ it was supposed to be a single ‘E’.

 

Given that she was incapable of suppressing a groan just looking at the damn thing, she decided she’d put off opening it till later. It was dumped near the ashtray upon her re-entry. Once she’d made her way back to the gaggle, Beth discovered that Amber was making a start on pouring the wine.

 

“None for me,” Beth told her breezily.

 

“I’m not drinking either,” Meredith said.

 

“Ooh are you pregnant?” Annie asked mischievously.

 

“Annie” Ruby admonished, faster than Beth. “You can’t ask people why they’re not drinking! Not cool.”

 

“Nah, it’s all right,” Meredith told Annie with an easy smile. “It’s just something I’m trying out.”

 

Amber squeezed her girlfriend’s arm and beamed at her.

 

Beth tried to keep an eye on Annie, she was worried the fake retching at the cutesy stuff could start any moment.

 

*

 

Beth found her equilibrium again, somewhere between the vol-au-vent and the salmon. Meredith suddenly appearing in another sphere of her life had shocked her, and inevitably made her suspicious, given her link to Rio. However, her behaviour had seemed completely normal, and she and Amber were indescribably sweet together. Beth tried to make herself believe it was an honest coincidence.

 

Her presence there was very agreeable too. Being around tipsy people, even tipsy people she loved very much, could be something of a trial when sober. They’d quickly get loud, as well as repetitive. Meredith’s calm, affable way was a pleasant contrast.

 

Still, when Amber had cornered Beth in the kitchen, as she was putting the finishing touches on the cheeseboard, wanting to tell her about a business idea she’d had, Beth only presented her with a tight-lipped smile. She then insisted that a friendly dinner wasn’t the right place for this kind of chat.

 

“How about we discuss it at your office tomorrow? You still wanted to go over the papers then anyway?”

 

Amber nodded, a little wide-eyed, Beth could tell she was concerned, worried she’d upset her somehow.

 

“Tonight’s girls’ night! It’s for fun!” Beth tried to compel a little more relaxed happiness into her face. “Besides, there’s actually a couple of things I’d love to pick your brain about, Amber. Honestly, if we start getting into all of that we could be talking shop all night. Let’s not bore Mer, huh?”

 

At that, Amber agreed readily.

 

*

 

It was Annie and Ruby who walked Amber and Meredith to the door when they were leaving, Beth yelling her goodbyes from the kitchen where she was busily packing up leftovers.

 

“Well that was fun,” Annie began, with obvious relish, as she headed back into the kitchen, before noticing Beth’s stricken look. Her older sister was clutching an empty wine glass to her chest as if it were some kind of talisman she could draw on for strength, and seemed to be on the verge of tears.

 

“Erm, so you didn’t have fun…?” Annie tried.

 

“She. She works for Rio. At the theatre. She. Um.”

 

“You think she’s involved with the shady side of his business too?” Ruby asked, sounding a little doubtful.

 

Beth shrugged. “She turned up holding a package from him.”

 

Annie gasped.

 

“Well, okay, she said she found it on the porch. But still.”

 

“Maybe it’s dinner party stuff?” Annie asked. “Fancy vanilla or saffron, something like that?”

 

Beth scoffed.

 

“You wanna, I dunno, open it and see?” Ruby suggested.

 

“Yes. No. I don’t know!”

 

Annie grabbed the decision from her hands by demanding its location, retrieving it and ripping at open. Inside were a key and a folded piece of paper which turned out to have an address on it.

 

“Well that’s not… unexpected,” Ruby said kindly.

 

“I guess not,” Beth sniffled petulantly. “But what if she _is_ his spy?”

 

“Well what would she have found out? That you can cook?” Annie reasoned. “Gang friend already knows that, right?”

 

“He has a _name_ , Annie!” Since Annie just pulled a face at her, Beth moved on, “ _Amber_ could be telling her all kinds of things.”

 

“You guys are meeting tomorrow, right?” Ruby checked. Beth nodded morosely and Ruby continued, “So you’ll ask Amber then how much she’s told Mer, and then you’ll know how to move forward. You got this, B.”

 

Beth’s panic was hardly quelled but after several rounds of her protesting how _okay_ she was, the other two eventually left. It was only then that she thought to check her burner phone. The single message simply said ‘before midday’. She supposed that was all she needed really – she already had the amount, address and access, had been told the date ahead of time. It did seem a weirdly unspecific window for a drop arrangement, but if she was going to get hung up on something she had bigger worries to focus her energy upon.

 

A disturbing thought had struck her – if Meredith _wasn’t_ spying for Rio, what if he found out that one of her business partners was in a relationship with one of his employees and jumped to similar conclusions? What if he thought that she was, via Amber, surveilling him? Would he react badly? Was she putting Amber in danger?

 

For a mad moment she considered using the burner to try to tell him, just to get ahead of it. True, he’d said he wouldn’t be on the other end of the phone, she still couldn’t avoid blushing at the memory of just how he’d told her that, but couldn’t she… What? Say ‘please can you tell your boss that a girl he knows like a girl I know’? It sounded hopelessly juvenile.

 

Ruby and Annie were the ones she’d promised to share her crazy theories with, not Rio. It seemed pointless, she couldn’t choose a path without more information. She knew she’d have to put it off until she’d caught up with Amber. That didn’t prevent her from spending a restless night, tossing and turning.

 

*

 

Amber was understanding when Beth and Annie explained that Ruby was pulling out of the organisational side of things, would truly be just an employee.

 

“I had an idea,” Amber announced. “I don’t really understand how, um, washing is it? Yeah, washing money works.”

 

“It is complicated,” Annie soothed.

 

“Yeah, it seems complicated,” Amber agreed. “But it seems like… it’s good to buy a lot of stuff? And then sell a lot of stuff?”

 

“Uh huh,” said Annie non-committally.

 

“Well I have to buy a lot of cars, here. For my job. And then I sell them.”

 

“Sure,” Beth said. “Thing is, you don’t own this company. So when you sell the cars, you don’t keep the profits.” The gears in her head were turning. “Doesn’t mean there’s not something we could work with here though.”

 

“Well, I do get a commission.”

 

Beth hummed interestedly, she wasn’t sure that’d be worth their while, but it was an arresting consideration.

 

“How about the accounting department?” Annie asked. “Any delightfully shady characters?”

 

“Oh, every single one of them.” Amber grinned wolfishly.

 

Annie and Beth shared an appraising look.

 

“Speaking of cars,” said Beth, “Remember that someone a little out for my blood?”

 

Amber nodded seriously.

 

“Well, I’m, uh, _dealing_ with all of that. But I need to make some deliveries, and it’d be wise not to use my own car. I’d prefer not to alert Dean to what’s going on if I can avoid it, so I’m a bit reticent to use anything from Boland Motors in case it tips him off.”

 

Amber looked a bit puzzled for a moment but eventually she got there, “You want to borrow my cars?”

 

“Yeah, of course I’m willing to work out a fee, whatever you think is reasonable?”

 

“Oh, don’t worry about that. As long as there’s no damage and they’re returned quickly, I don’t mind. We’re partners! Mi casa es su casa.”

 

“Thanks Amber!” Beth exclaimed gladly.

 

Annie’s mouth had opened and closed fish-like, as is she wanted to correct her as to the difference between cars and houses, but she evidently deemed it a waste of time.

 

However, she did say, carefully, “So Mer seems really cool.”

 

Amber agreed dreamily.

 

“Have you told her much about the biz?”

 

“Well,” Amber said, more thoughtfully, “I told her you gals came to me with a good proposition and bad credit, and that I thought the idea sounded good, so we’re doing it.”

 

Annie smiled brightly. “So nothing about the washing?”

 

“I love her,” Amber said, as if that answered the question, making Beth’s heart tug at her strangely. “I don’t want to involve her in anything that would make her uncomfortable. So, no, I haven’t told her about that.”

 

Annie breathed a relieved sigh, allowed a grin to gleam.

 

“But I don’t want to lie to her either,” Amber continued. “If she asks me something outright, I’m not going to bullshit her. You guys didn’t bullshit me. And if things get more serious… You know, if our finances are going to get all mixed together, I think then I’d need to tell her.”

 

“That sounds fair,” Beth agreed. “Please will you let me know if you think things are getting there? I won’t try to talk you out of it, I promise, it’s just good to have a heads up on who’s in the loop on what, you know? Can’t be too careful.”

 

“Of course. We’re partners!”

 

Amber then proudly showed the paperwork to them. “Fancy That is in business!” she crowed. They all whooped excitedly.

 

Then, worriedly, she recalled that Mer had said she had some ideas for the Etsy shop, particularly social media presence and something complicated involving international postage, given that she had some experience in marketing.

 

“Is it okay that I talked to her about that stuff?”

 

“Of course!” Beth said. “Though I’m not sure we’ve got the budget for a full time marketing person right now?”

 

“Oh, she doesn’t want any money for it,” Amber laughed prettily. “She just wants to help.”

 

*

On the drive back, Annie dialled Ruby in.

 

“What’s up?” Ruby asked.

 

“I think we need to chat _work_ ,” Annie said grimly.

 

“You remember the part where I’m out, right?”

 

“This is about the job of not getting all murdered or framed.”

 

“Oh, well, I’m still in for that part.”

 

Given that they didn’t think Meredith was pumping Amber for info, Ruby and Annie tried to get Beth to explore the idea of using Meredith’s connection to Rio somehow to their advantage.

 

There were some sound arguments in there, though Beth wondered if she could really bring them much outside of his legitimate business interests. Either way, she couldn’t make herself to agree to the plan.

 

There hadn’t been too many lines she’d been unable to cross since entering their life of crime, but there’d been some. She couldn’t rob a little old lady of her cash, she couldn’t murder someone pre-meditated, and apparently she couldn’t stand the idea of using that trusting, kind girl.

 

But perhaps more significantly, she was more than wary as to what Rio would do if he found out. He’d always seemed to stay several steps ahead of them, and she was focussed on appearing useful to him. She was desperate for him to trust her this time.

 

“We will find another way,” she insisted, hoping that was true.

 

*

 

Beth’s date with Lawrence the next day did not go very well, though perhaps it didn’t go as badly as it could’ve, all things considerd.

 

They’d chatted politely over coffee, and had moved on to sharing a piece of pie, when the first tear slid from Beth’s eye.

 

She’d been mortified, but he’d been so, so kind, assuring her that he understood, that putting yourself back out there could be difficult.

 

“Tough divorce?” he asked sympathetically.

 

“No, well yes, I suppose.”

 

“I know how that goes, I was married for twenty-five years, three kids. Suddenly having an empty house when they’re with their mother… it’s a lot to get used to!”

 

Beth murmured agreements but then added, “I was kind of having a rebound _thing_ , but then the guy… well, he died.”

 

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”

 

“Yeah, it was. And now he’s – _his_ , um, brother has shown up in my life, unexpectedly. It’s very… weird. Uh, they look alike, you see. It’s uncanny.”

 

“Ah, and is there a spark?”

 

“What?” said Beth, feeling vaguely affronted at the assumptions this man was making about her fake life, and so used to automatically correcting anything anyone said to her on the topic of Rio.

 

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. It was just the way you said it, never mind. You know, I think that happens more than you’d think though. Lots of people are drawn to dating people who look like an ex, and when there’s grief involved, I think it’s natural to flock to someone else who shares that.”

 

“Yeah, I guess,” Beth said gloomily.

 

“I think I watched a Duplass Brothers film about that, you know?”

 

Beth lost it at that, giving the tears free rein. “ _Your Sister’s Sister,_ ” she choked out. “It’s Lynn Shelton. Mark Duplass is just in it. It’s important to, uh, oh god, support female directors!” She’d barely got the last few words out, and she wasn’t sure Lawrence had followed everything she'd been saying, he looked fairly concerned. She assumed she looked frightful.

 

After she’d calmed down, they continued talking.

 

“You know, if you ever want to hang out, no strings, let me know,” Lawrence said kindly to her. “When the children aren’t around, I hardly know what to do with myself. I’m definitely in the market for new friends, it’s not so easy making new ones at this age. Everyone’s kind of settled.”

 

“Thanks,” said Beth unaffectedly, thinking of Ruby and Annie, of Stan, of Amber and Meredith too. She was lucky, she realised.

 

“And, hey, the new business you’re working for sounds fascinating. You should take my card, it’s not just guilty people who need lawyers you know!”

 

*

 

Back in her car afterwards, buoyed by a strange cocktail of emotions and likely too much caffeine, Beth let her instinct take the wheel.

 

Marching into the theatre, she was relieved to see no sign of Meredith, just two lanky young men working.

 

“Your boss here?” she demanded of the nearest, pointing towards Rio’s office.

 

“Err, yeah?” he told her confusedly, and that was all she needed to begin her march to that room.

 

She found the door shut, so she knocked impatiently.

  
“Yeah?” he called out. The sound of his voice, the fact that he was _alive_ , still bowled her the fuck over, and hearing this, the way he sounded when he didn’t know she was around, all open and warm, was way worse.

 

She snapped the door open and shoved herself inside.

 

He looked at her coolly, any surprise suppressed.

 

“Sup?”

 

“There is something,” she began, feeling a little foolish but forcing herself to plough on, “that I think you should hear from me.”

 

He looked expectant.

 

“One of your employees is dating one of my associates.”

 

“Aight...” he said, looking unruffled.

 

She narrowed her eyes, “Did you orchestrate it?”

 

“I dunno what you on ‘bout. Your sister banging some dude I know or what?”

 

“What?” No!” Her blush was as inevitable as it was irritating to her. “I’m talking about Meredith.”

 

He raised a brow.

 

“Not with Annie! She’s – well, look. The details aren’t important. You didn’t know?”

 

“Mer’s my friend’s kid sister. You really asking if I pimped her out?” It was asked mildly, but she could tell that she’d pissed him off. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling.

 

“Well, no,” she said deflating, but then she remembered how she’d schemed for Stan to run into one of his former colleagues. “You didn’t, I don’t know, facilitate them meeting? Get some sparks flying?”

 

He laughed in her face. “You think I been running around playing Cupid? Hate to disappoint sweetheart, but that ain’t really my style.”

 

The mental picture of him in a bright loincloth, tacky bow and arrow in hand, was annoyingly far less amusing, more weirdly enticing, than it had any right to be. Still, she made herself snort for appearances’ sake.

 

“Right,” she said awkwardly, before making a speedy exit.

 

She’d thought or feared or maybe simply _hoped_ that he might've follow her, that he’d want to deride her some more, that their weird gravitational pull would have him chasing her to her car and perhaps even beyond. But this time she made it to her car unmolested, this time she didn’t have to suffer any further embarrassment, at least from him.

 

*

 

Home, settled on her picnic bench, she chain-smoked viciously until she began to feel queasy. It didn’t stop her remembering every terrible little moment and detail, but at least it gave her something to occupy her hands with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope this chapter isn't too busy :)
> 
> (also who tf knew vol-au-vent was the plural of vol-au-vent?!)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth had diligently shoved aside any desire to go see him after her debacle of an attempt to fill him in on the Amber and Meredith situation. She’d felt the mortification of that so keenly she’d honestly thought that she could happily never interact with him again.

The last few months had gone, if not well, at least bearably. Fancy That was doing a decent trade, they could certainly spare enough to pay Ruby handsomely, Beth had even contracted a couple of PTA moms on ad hoc part-time costume-making too. Mer had put them in touch with a few Instragram influencers, and they’d developed a bit of a Parisian cult following as a result. She’d been right about the international postage too – if people were willing to import goods they’d pay damn near anything for shipping, without question.

 

Beth’d been making all her drops, no problem. The locations were never messaged to her burner phone, always communicated on the little scraps of paper found in the packages that popped up. Sometimes those envelopes appeared at her house, other times they’d be waiting for her at a drop site. Normally they were addressed to her, with just her first initial, in Rio’s appalling chicken scratch, though a couple had been labelled in a different, legible, hand. About half the time a key came along with the address. She’d hungrily catalogued the limited variety to the procedures, as if she could make it mean something significant.

 

The messages she _did_ receive to the burner phone were imprecise but informative enough, loose time windows in which to deliver the money, the messages appearing at any point, seemingly rhythm-less, within the month. A couple of times there’d been no message at all, so she’d figured any point in the day would do. She’d had one cryptic one back near the beginning, just ‘I wish days had more hours’. Given that her first drop had been on the 24th of the month, she’d presumed it was to tell her to stick to that date monthly.

 

She never replied to the texts, though she’d had a few passing urges to demand further information. She had to assume she was supposed to have enough to make this work. And that if anything had gone wrong someone would surely have told her.

 

She’d had very little interaction with Rio during the time, in fact had only seen him once, not too long after she and Annie had got their side hustle with Amber and the cars off the ground. Beth had diligently shoved aside any desire to go see him after her debacle of an attempt to fill him in on the Amber and Meredith situation. She’d felt the mortification of that so keenly she’d honestly thought that she could happily never interact with him again.

 

Ruby and especially Annie hadn’t stopped urging her to do _something_ , to find a path to clawing out some secret upper hand. They’d accused her of coasting, of even _liking_ the current situation, of avoiding the fact of the inevitable future when at least one other shoe would drop. But Beth insisted she was biding her time, that she’d find her way to a ploy, a good one. She’d been spending more and more time staring at her board, willing her mind to work.

 

Stan, and therefore Ruby sometimes too, had seen a little more of Derrick, and some of his other former colleagues. They’d informed Beth that it definitely seemed like Turner was going after some big fish, higher up than Rio, that it sounded like some other agencies might be involved. That last part had given the girls pause, and they’d agreed to stay off their phones when it came to business talk, just in case there could be wiretaps.

 

As Beth thought about it further though, the less she could imagine Rio having a boss. She’d told her sister and best friend how often he’d talked about being the king. Apart from Ruby’s diverting point that his name was an anagram of roi, the French for king, and the ensuing fond bickering about how she always brought up her impressive high school language achievements, it only served to make her girls more concerned. They were increasingly convinced that Rio was setting up some trail to paint Beth as a criminal mastermind, that Turner’s obsession with her remained unstymied. Somehow though Beth couldn’t help feeling progressively sceptical of that logic.

 

She’d still seen neither hide nor hair of Turner, and that just didn’t track with what she knew of him. She couldn’t imagine him closing in on her with no sign, no visits, no gloating. And Rio… Well, it wasn’t like she could purport to be able to read him with any real skill. And yet – things between them had begun to feel a little like the fragile peace of their early days.

 

*

 

The last time she’d seen him, he’d been invading her space again, uninvited. She’d been at her usual spot at the picnic bench in her back yard, facing the house, smoking and contemplating. The kids were with Dean, she had precious few demands on her time for the weekend for once, the night was dark and moonless. It was the perfect moment for letting her mind wander, to scan her current routine for holes, to try desperately to edge herself ahead of whatever Rio’s plots even _were_.

 

So she didn’t notice him, silent and dressed darkly, almost until he’d already folded himself into the seat opposite her. She was _so_ intensely surprised, him being there felt so unreal, the cover of eerie night made it all feel so much like a bubble of a moment separated from real life, that nothing prevented her from saying tartly in greeting, “I wasn’t aware you realised the benches are the part for sitting on.”

 

She couldn’t see his face too well, the glimmering from the minimal lighting of her home fell across him strangely, but she thought it possible that she’d gleaned the fleeting ghost of a smile.

 

“Long legs,” he said simply, kicking one oh so gently against her ankle.

 

Beth immediately pulled her feet back behind her, out of range.

 

She wanted to say something sour about how she wasn’t exactly a hobbit either, though she managed to avoid sitting on tables practically every day of her life, but then his hand appeared so close to her face she had no trouble seeing it. She swallowed, and apparently every thought she’d ever had drifted away from her.

 

Eventually, with the help of the expectant set of his appendage, she pieced together that he was demanding a cigarette. She wasn’t completely sure if he was asking for a puff of hers or one of his own, but the idea of sharing one with him, of clumsily passing something back and forth in the murky darkness, sounded fundamentally untenable so she carefully moved her hand near his, allowing him to take her partially smoked one from her.

 

She wondered for a second if he was going to do what Dean used to do to her when she was a teenager, before she’d given the habit up, before they’d been married. He used to grab her cigarettes out of her hand to bend and destroy. It had been sweet in a way – his demanding concern for her health, his desperate desire for her to always be with him. But the fact that she couldn’t make him understand how precious they were to her, how hard she’d worked to be able to afford them on top of everything else, had left her with tears of frustration in her eyes.

 

Rio did no such thing, just calmly inhaled then exhaled smoke.

 

“I didn’t know you smoke,” Beth said conversationally, reaching for the packet to draw another cigarette for herself.

 

“I don’t,” he said, and she huffed a short-lived laugh before he surprised her once again by flicking her lighter, holding the flame out for her, his other hand cupping it to protect it from any wind. Distantly she supposed that it made sense that his eyes had adjusted better to the gloom, he was facing out towards her garden, untroubled by the glare. Most of her brainpower was consumed with the sudden opportunity to see his face properly though. She’d been so hungry for it, and hadn’t acknowledged it, not even to herself.

 

“Ditto,” he said, once he’d dropped the lighter back onto the table.

 

It took her a moment to understand, to remember what they’d even been talking of, but then she said with a smile, “Oh, I quit years ago.”

 

She caught the whiff of a motion from his form, what could have been a tiny nod.

 

He intrigued her by talking more. “Thing about having quit, yeah? Y’know you can have one. A treat, like. Cos you _ain’t_ a smoker no more.”

 

Beth chewed on that momentarily, then with narrowed eyes asked, “Are you doing the Tom Waits bit from _Coffee and Cigarettes?_ ”

 

“Shit,” Rio said, though he sounded anything but displeased, “been rumbled.”

 

“Does that make me Iggy?”

 

“S’pose so, both Detroiters, yeah?”

 

She snorted, then thought. “Tom Waits is from California, right?”

 

“Think he is, yeah.” Rio spoke with a careful casualness.

 

She drummed her fingers on the table in annoyance, and couldn’t hold herself back from saying, knowing she sounded a little petulant, “It’s not fair you know everything about me and I don’t know anything about you.”

 

Noticing that he was crushing the remains of the cigarette into her ashtray, she nudged the packet toward him in offering.

 

He made a small considering noise before grabbing another smoke. She got another good glimpse of him, lit by flame, before he said, “What you wanna know?”

 

Options flitted fast through her mind in response to that opening. Are you setting me up? Are you going to kill me? Are you a person without remorse? Do you think that I’m one? Have you ever liked me? Am I just a plaything for you? Why haven’t you killed me?

 

She couldn’t imagine anything like that would get her much response beyond him shutting the fuck down though. And even simple biographical details – would he be alarmed by her prying? And couldn’t he just lie anyway?

 

So she went with something she’d been dying to ask for a long while, but had felt too shy, too culpable, to give voice to. “How’s your son?”

 

“Marcus?” he said, sounding startled, though not concerned. She registered that he didn’t seem to have a problem with her knowing his kid’s name after all, tried to not freak herself out with whether that meant she was clearly marked for death.

 

“Yeah, he’s good. Losing teeth left and right.” He sounded so proud and joyful talking on this topic. Something in Beth just _hurt_ , and not simply because it seemed so easy for Rio to be a whole, complete _person_ while also being imbued with that deep, abiding love for his child.

 

She thought she could get used to this though, to conversations in the blackness. Not being distracted by his eyes on her or his sometimes stony expressions, or maybe simply experiencing him without the need for the weight of keeping up all his safeguards against her, felt intoxicatingly freer than their usual. She found she could read so much more in his voice.

 

“He’s not in town at the moment though,” Rio added, almost as an afterthought, not exactly sharply, but certainly differently.

 

Still, she was bolstered by the sudden openness he’d shown her, was thinking about posing another question. But then he’d started talking again.

 

“I’m upping your instalments.”

 

With a surge of extremely horrified embarrassment, Beth realised that of course he must have had a purpose for the visit, he hadn’t merely meandered by for a chat. Despite everything, he could still obliterate her defences with very little effort.

 

“Huh?” she managed.

 

He named his higher number. “Seems like you can afford it.”

 

“How do you know that?”

 

“You just told me.”

 

She didn’t need a good visual on him to know the exact lazy, self-satisfied grin that had to be gracing his face.

 

Maybe he took pity on her for some reason, or perhaps he couldn’t stop wanting to coach her still, but he added, “Little sis been flashing too much cash again, tipped me off.”

 

Beth groaned, making a mental note to admonish Annie. They couldn’t afford to make waves. She just hoped Rio noticing was the extent of the damage.

 

“Okay,” she agreed, “same schedule?”

 

“Yup,” he said firmly, his outline bobbing a little.

 

Neither of them said anything, but she thought she sensed his eyes on her. Her skin felt like it was sparking, but maybe that was only due to their proximity.

 

For a stretching spate of seconds the air felt electric with promise, but then she found that he was, fairly gracefully, extricating himself from the bench, only bumping knees with her once.

 

Before she knew it, he was wandering away, almost indiscernible, without so much as a vaguely threatening farewell. She waited agonising minutes, until she was sure that he _had_ to be gone, before pressing her forehead to the wooden table and moaning long noises quietly.

 

*

 

Still, even with, or maybe especially because of, that bizarre encounter, Beth had been feeling weirdly okay about things. And lord knows how long that might’ve continued for, if it hadn’t been for the whole thing with her boiler.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> little bit of a timeskip :)
> 
> preamble for next chapter: boilers are the devil incarnate


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was during one of those respites, while she gladly gulped large breaths of the cool air, when it happened. She’d been sticking close to the wide open back door, the blasting hot air from inside actually felt pleasant while she was standing in the Michigan weather, rather than punishing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm bumping the rating of this to M to be on the safe side

Beth didn’t understand the technical ins and outs of it at all, but she was certainly aware of the problem. The heat was stuck on, there seemed to be no way to turn it off or even slightly down.

 

She hadn’t noticed it initially, what with the weather having gotten frostier over the past few weeks, and her not having spent much time at home the last couple of days other than the very cold nights. But the evening before she’d been working at her beloved desktop computer in what was now _her_ home office, when she’d suddenly become aware that it was seriously _sweltering_.

 

She’d gone to poke and prod at the boiler and thermostat, but none of the usual tricks had worked. She was a little reticent to fuck with it too much, remembered Dean giving her a pompous speech about _something_ she must never do with one of the switches, though she had no idea which one.

 

So she’d sighed and tried to call out an engineer. It would be an annoying expense, but at least she knew she could afford it, finally.

 

The problem, though, was that she couldn’t find anyone available to come out at short notice. Due to the cold snap they all seemed to be having a higher than usual volume of calls, though mostly from people with the opposite issue – those suffering from a lack of heating.

 

She tried to feel that she was lucky really, at least she wasn’t freezing. She resolved to cope for the next few days, glad that it was Dean’s turn with the kids. With the windows open and both fans on in the office, the temperature was just about acceptable if she wasn’t over-dressed and kept up a decent supply of chilled soft drinks or popsicles.

 

She’d considered and discarded her other options. Asking Dean for advice was out, she knew she was definitely too proud. Beth wasn’t keen to go stay somewhere else either, she’d had a busy week and was looking forward to decompressing alone over the weekend. Plus it wasn’t like her desktop would be easy to take with if she went anywhere, and she had mountains of spreadsheets she needed to update before Monday.

 

Despite the relative success of her cool-down methods, she still had to make a break for the back yard every so often, slipping on one of her cosier winter robes and some new fluffy slippers to ward off the worst of the chill out there.

 

It was during one of those respites, while she gladly gulped large breaths of the cool air, when it happened. She’d been sticking close to the wide open back door, the blasting hot air from inside actually felt pleasant while she was standing in the Michigan weather, rather than punishing.

 

Suddenly, a figure barrelled around the side of her house.

 

Rio gave her an appraising once-over.

 

“Sup?”

 

“Err. Hi,” she said faintly, feeling more than a little frazzled.

 

He didn’t say anything to that. There was a strange look in his eyes, she realised, he almost seemed… excited?

 

“Can I help you?” she asked, hoping desperately that cutting to the chase might speed things along. She had enough problems to deal with over the weekend without adding deciphering Rio’s maddeningly cryptic behaviour, or embarrassedly combing through her responses to it for hours or more likely days after he’d left, into the mix.

 

“Yeah, can we talk?”

 

She tilted her head in acceptance, kindly refrained from pointing out that they already were speaking.

 

He shivered, and suggested, “Inside?”

 

It was only then that she took in that he was simply wearing one of his light jackets, no proper coat, no hint of warmer accoutrements like a hat or scarf about his person either. She wondered where he’d just come from, wherever it was she assumed it was unlikely to have matched the temperature of her house.

 

“Fine,” she said, and headed on in. Maybe the hostile warmth of her home would encourage him to be quick. Or perhaps it’d send him into some feverish confusion and he’d confess something of his plans to her! Or, hey, he might be so grateful to be warmed up he wouldn’t even question it.

 

Once they were both inside, and Rio had shut the door behind him, Beth realised that the last one of her hopes was patently unlikely at any rate. The heat indoors was _obscene_.

 

She automatically and speedily kicked off her slippers and shucked off her robe, same as she’d done after every one of her outside breaks. She also found herself trying very hard not to laugh as Rio instinctively toed off his shoes, while his hands flew to his jacket, scrambling to undo the buttons and rid himself of a layer. He looked around her place in confusion, like he was searching for the source of a fire. She couldn’t really blame him.

 

“You turning the place into a sauna or w-” his question cut off when he turned to peek back at her. “ _Damn_ mama.”

 

She looked down at herself. The shirt she was wearing was absolutely ridiculous, she knew that, though it was comfy. It was a freebie from one of Fancy That’s wool suppliers, with a gormless cartoon sheep on the front. It was also far, far too big. The neck of it gaped widely, the sleeves reached towards her elbows and it fell to almost below her knees. The material sort of caught at her breasts and hips, but everywhere else it hung loosely. Her skin was all pinked up, and quickly getting covered in a fresh sheen of sweat since she’d come back inside. Her hair was piled up haphazardly too, a style with the single intention of keeping it off her neck.

 

“Ha ha,” said Beth, with more of an eye shudder than an eye _roll_.

 

“Who’s laughing?” Rio’s voice sounded almost stern but… She hadn’t imagined that sultriness there, had she?

 

“Seriously?” she breathed.

 

He shrugged, let his arms splay wide. “ _Yeah_. Man, you look good in anything. Best in nothing though.”

 

She stared up at him, feeling something akin to exquisite under the evident lust in his gaze. She hadn’t thought this was something that would _ever_ be on the table again.

 

Beth made a split-second decision, trying not to focus on her sense of regret at the fact that she’d have to tell Ruby and Annie about it later. “Want to take it off me then?”

 

He took on a considering air, as one half of his mouth particularly turned up in a sneaky smile before his tongue poked at his cheek, smoothing it away. She saw, clearly, when his decision clouded his face.

 

“Wanna die of dehydration?”

 

“If you don’t, uhhh,” she flustered, thankful at least that as sweaty and red as she already was he probably couldn’t tell how much she was blushing.

 

“’Snot a no,” he said, fast. “Just… wanna take a look at whatever’s wrong first?”

 

She blinked at him in some confusion before saying, “I don’t want you making it worse. Someone’s coming to fix it in a couple of days anyway.”

 

“ _Days_?” he asked incredulously. Then, “There _is_ worse?”

 

And, well, as she felt all fractious and shamed and generally as if there was a boiling volcano of rage under her skin fit to erupt at any moment, it seemed like he might have had a point.

 

Beth stalked over to the boiler, knowing without checking that he’d be following her.

 

She watched him press at the thermostat with a resigned, knowing look on her face. Then, in horror, she saw him nudge the temperature _up_ by pressing a different button.

 

With a groan she exclaimed, “Why would you possibly think I want to make it _hotter_?!”

 

“Chill,” he admonished with a tiny laugh. “Just working out the problem.”

 

“Is it you,” she muttered, but quietly enough that he probably couldn’t hear.

 

“Don’t think it’s the boiler,” he continued. “Just this down button’s fucked, see?”

 

“I suppose you always carry spare thermostat buttons around with you?” she asked, all sweetness.

 

“Nah. Don’t think that’s what you need though. This plugged into the mains?”

 

“I… am not sure.”

 

He felt around the casing. “Think so. You know where your fuse box is?”

 

“Yes,” she bristled.

 

“Mind flipping ‘em?”

 

She shrugged, then nodded when he kept looking at her.

 

“And can you find me a small Phillips screwdriver? That’s the one that-”

 

“I know which screwdriver is which,” she said acidly, annoyed that was talking down to her. Somewhere in the back of her brain though she registered how unnervingly similar he sounded to her misapplied mommy voice, to the way she sometimes accidentally talked to Annie or Ruby like they were one of her children.

 

He smiled in an insistently pleasant way and nodded, adding, “Oh, and can you get a-” she’d reached into the cupboard and had smacked her flashlight into his hand, too forcefully, before he’d even finished.

 

“Thanks,” he said, almost offensively faux-polite given how snippy she was being.

 

Beth trundled off to flip the fuses, using her phone as a torch to guide her back, a couple of small screwdrivers in her other hand.

 

Rio made quick work of unscrewing the cover, tutting as he cleaned off the area behind the button, before he put everything back together.

 

Once the electricity was flowing again, he triumphantly showed her that her thermostat, and therefore the situation, was fixed.

 

She exhaled gratefully.

 

“So,” he said with an amused grin, “Still open to me taking that off?” His eyes mapped her form. “Might be getting all cold soon.”

 

She could chalk what she’d said up to heat-induced delusions. He wouldn’t believe her but he’d let it slide, at least she thought he would.

 

Beth looked up at him, relaxed and pleased, leaning against her wall.

 

“So warm me up then,” she suggested, before pushing past him into her bedroom. Inside, she quickly kicked off her underwear, some horrific giant pair she’d bought on sale that she’d rather die than let Rio see her in, before she chucked them into her laundry basket.

 

He entered not long after her, blatantly smirking.

 

“Like what you done with the place,” he said, his eyes never leaving her. She supposed he’d caught her redecorations in his peripheral, but that wasn’t something she particularly felt the need to discuss. In fact, she didn’t want to talk at all.

 

He closed the gap between them and that, that was was familiar territory, they’d done that before, in the same very spot. Yet her heart felt like it was threatening to beat right out of her as she pushed herself up and pressed her lips to his.

 

The kiss soon turned hot and heavy, their hands roving over each other’s bodies. Rio started walking her over to the bed, and Beth broke the kiss when the backs of her legs hit the mattress. Once she’d settled herself against the headboard, knees parted, she gestured for him to follow her. Rio didn’t hesitate, crawled into the gap between her legs with a satisfied grin.

 

His hands found their way under her shirt, just stroking the skin of her sides at first, as he began kissing her again. Her fingers moved to explore below his t-shirt too. And the thing is, she really hadn’t meant to do it, didn’t have the spare mental processing power to consider what that meant.

 

She was so wrapped up in the moment, so lost in ecstatic sensations, that she was smoothing her palms over the planes of his chest without a moment’s concern. It was only as one hand nudged across a couple of tiny bumps that she realised she was about to be confronted with the evidence of what she’d done to him; her blood began to feel like it had started flowing backwards.

 

Beth was intimately familiar with gunshot wounds, she’d had to care for Dean’s after Rio had shot him with the gun that she’d later wounded Rio himself with. So almost the next moment after she realised she was about to feel the reminders of her shooting him, three bullet holes, she was moved to yank up his shirt and take a look. Her eyes confirmed what her touches had only led her to suspect. _Th_ _ose bullet scars weren’t there!_

 

It took him a moment to catch up to her. His eyes were still shut, lips still pursed. He even made as if to shimmy helpfully, probably thinking she was trying to get his top off. But then he opened his eyes, caught her glaring vengefully at his chest.

 

“Ah,” he said with an amused snort. “’Bout that,”

 

“Oh my god!” Beth interrupted. “Oh my _god_. If you’re about to tell me that you’re the evil – or no, good? – twin, I will lose my… Or if this is some kind of Tyler Durden thing, I’m going to… Oh my god. _Oh my god_.”

 

“Breathe, ma,” he said gently, greatly increasing her desire to smack him.

 

“I need...” she began, but trailed off.

 

“What?”

 

 _I need to sit down_ , she’d been about to say, before she realised she wasn’t standing.

 

“Pants. This feels like the kind of conversation I should be wearing pants for.”

 

“Yeah, prolly,” he agreed, a little awkwardly. He looked away from her for a moment, as she straightened her long shirt before going to her dresser for a pyjama set. She narrowed her eyes at him once more, then headed into her en suite. She took her time in there, splashed water on her face before she changed, then took the opportunity to pee.

 

She almost wished he’d be gone by the time she came back out, though she vowed that if he was she’d track him down and… And murder him properly this time.

 

He was still in the bedroom though when she returned to it. He’d moved to one of her chairs, so she sat imperiously on the edge of her bed, looking at him.

 

“So…” she said expectantly.

 

His explanations blurred and muddled past her, and she had to keep getting him to repeat parts.

 

Slowly, a story of blanks and blood-packs, of remote controlled devices and his boys nearby, of EMTs and even _doctors_ on the payroll came together in her mind.

 

“But- but didn’t Turner…?”

 

“Nah. Didn’t even stick around for the ambulance to show.” Rio laughed. “We still made it look real though, never know who watching.”

 

“I _mourned_ you!”

 

He had the decency to look chagrined at that, not that she was falling for it.

 

“If you had a plan you could have just told me about it!”

 

“Nah, darling. Had to look real. ‘Sides, you weren’t exactly acting super trustworthy round then.”

 

Icy, violent anger danced across her features.

 

“Oh _I’m_ the untrustworthy one?”

 

He opened his mouth as if to respond, but she beat him to it.

  
“Get out.”

 

She _hear_ _d_ his teeth grinding.

 

“Get the fuck out of my house. Now.”

 

He nodded slowly and stood up, making to leave.

 

“Elizabeth?” It had been said so plaintively that she couldn’t help but give him a chance to speak, though she hated herself for it. “I know you mad but don’t fuck with the drops, yeah? They real important.”

 

“Oh jesus fucking christ!” she exploded. “Is that the only god damn thing you care about, your money!? Yeah, fine, it’ll keep coming if you get out of my house _right now_.”

 

She saw his jaw clench as he looked at her one last time before suddenly he was gone.

 

*

 

She hardly cried at all really, afterwards. There were just a few blistering, furious, baffled tears. She rapidly decided that she’d wept enough over him, when he’d been dead, when she’d been the one to kill him. He didn’t deserve any more of her sobs. Not a selfish, using, greedy, lying bastard like him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys like it :)
> 
> I know a lot of people aren't keen on the idea of the finale shooting being any kind of setup but I think within the confines of this story it'll hopefully make sense over the next few chapters.
> 
> PS I have nothing against giant underwear but I am not Beth ;)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth tried to count backwards from ten, but gave up sharpish and instead gulped down the rest of her bourbon. It worked quite as well, if not better, to subdue her frayed nerves.

Beth had been coming up with plans to get at Rio with a furious fervour that was clearly alarming to both Annie and Ruby.

 

“I thought you _wanted_ me to do something?” Beth wasn’t able, or perhaps she was just unwilling, to keep frustration from souring her voice. “I mean, you’ve been badgering me about doing that for months.”

 

“Sure,” Annie said, with a constructed calmness in her tone which Beth knew well was intended to soothe, though it instead made her hackles raise even further. “But this sudden change of heart is kinda giving me whiplash.”

 

Beth just snorted.

 

Ruby made her own attempt: “Maybe now’s a good time to, um, take stock? Making decisions angry doesn’t always work out for the best.”

 

Beth tried to count backwards from ten, but gave up sharpish and instead gulped down the rest of her bourbon. It worked quite as well, if not better, to subdue her frayed nerves.

 

She saw Annie and Ruby’s worried scrutiny follow the movements of her glass and had to suppress the urge to roll her eyes. Okay, she’d started drinking again but it wasn’t like anyone could honestly describe it as ‘a lot’, exactly. It wasn’t to excess, nowhere near the point of her being out of control. It was simply to feel something positive, sips while she brainstormed, merely what was sufficient to slough some of the edges away.

 

“I shouldn’t be mad?”

 

“No one is saying that,” Annie immediately replied in a firm, but certainly not unkind, way. Her eyes were wide open and she had no problem meeting and holding Beth’s gaze. And that, that was actually placating in its way.

 

“Dude lied to you, manipulated you – that’s super uncool, no argument. Just… we don’t really know what he’s capable of. So whatever we’re going to do, we want to be careful. Right?”

 

“Doing something _is_ the careful thing!” Beth’s words came out louder than she’d anticipated. She was struggling to convey the urgency she felt, the need to act _now_. “You guys’ve been freaked for months about being in danger. I… I’m sorry. I should’ve listened.”

 

Annie shuffled a little, looking down at her feet.

 

Beth almost didn’t press it, was just about on the cusp of not being able to take one further bit of information in. But she’d been beating herself up for days over ignoring obvious warning signs.

 

So she sighed and said, “Annie, what?”

 

“Uh… Look, I’m not _not_ freaked out by him, okay? It’s just… Well, look Beth. This whole time I couldn’t seem to get you to worry about yourself, you know? And I thought if I could make you think other people you care about were at risk… you might actually stop and consider things a bit more?”

 

 _Oh_. Was she truly so nakedly oblivious to whatever threats Rio posed to her?

 

Ruby valiantly took up the mantle, “Yeah B, we don’t really know what homeboy’s gonna do…”

 

“Ha!” said Beth.

 

“Well, okay, we _definitely_ don’t know. But if he was gonna dissolve us in oil drums or whatever, wouldn’t he have done that already?”

 

Beth lingered on that assessment for just a moment, but then returned to her original point. “Look I’m just saying, if Meredith can get us _some_ info on him it’d be handy. His full, _real_ , name, say.”

 

“Beth,” said Ruby warningly, “you really didn’t want to _involve_ her.”

 

“Oh, what, just cos she’s someone’s kid sister she has to be protected at all costs forever?”

 

Annie cleared her throat. “No. But she’s your friend. Our friend. And you don’t want to drag her into whatever this is? You’ve been very clear about that, repeatedly.”

 

Beth waved her hand, expelling a light exasperated noise from her throat at the same time, as if she could dispel the criticism with that. She was over expending her loyalty on people who hadn’t explicitly earned it.

 

“I’m hardly talking about sending her into the trenches. I just want her to get us a couple of little titbits.”

 

Ruby nodded tautly and asked, “And what would we do with those titbits?”

 

“Well I don’t know, _research_?” Beth could tell she hadn’t exactly sold them on the idea. “Oh! Maybe I’ll fill some storage units with a bunch of incriminating evidence and put them in his name. Since apparently that’s a thing you can just _do_.”

 

“I dunno,” Annie still sounded unimpressed, but at least she was engaging somewhat with the premise rather than trying to veer away from it. “If that is a thing you can do, I feel like it wouldn’t hold up?”

 

Beth’s nose scrunched delicately as she considered. She tried to brush away the annoying intruding possibility that somehow Rio leaving his stuff, including piles of fake cash, under her name hadn’t necessarily been part of an attempt to set her up.

 

“Maybe it doesn’t need to hold up all that well. It only needs to be enough to whet someone’s interest.”

  
“Whose?” Ruby asked.

 

Beth raised her chin. “Turner.”

 

Neither Annie nor Ruby were thrilled with that line of thinking, concerned that he’d turn on them if his sights weren’t already set that way, and anxious that he’d likely see through any pretext Beth could have for crossing paths with him.

 

“So I’ll do what Stan did with Derrick. Stumble into him in the fruit aisle of his closest Whole Foods, or go apartment hunting in his building, something like that.”

 

Annie raised an eyebrow. “Sis, what about Turner’s deal with gang friend, huh?” She waited patiently for Beth to correct her over Rio’s name. When it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, Annie’s mouth pulled sideways.

 

“Turner’s a shady SOB,” Ruby said, presumably to fill the silence as much as for any other purpose. “But he’s never tried to convince us he’s dead. We’ve got no idea what the hell’s gone on between those two maniacs. So sussing out Turner’s vibe towards Beth could help?”

 

Beth poured herself another drink, raising her tumbler to Ruby in a pleased salute.

 

“Weird dumb plan,” Ruby muttered, mostly to herself.

 

“ _Rude_.”

 

“Not yours, Beth. I mean, uh, _gang friend’s_.”

 

“Faking your death?” Annie queried. “I’m sure crime bosses do that all the time.”

 

“Okay, one, how could you possibly be sure of that?” Ruby quibbled, quickly continuing before Annie could respond. “Two, ‘all the time’? That doesn’t sound likely. And three.. okay, faking your death, fine. But who was he faking it _for_? I hope it wasn’t Turner, cos if they made a deal… that fishy-ass fed obviously knows he survived! Getting faux shot in front of the guy who then calls the ambulance for you and ‘saves’ your life doesn’t seem… like it’d do much convincing?”

 

Annie considered that. “Maybe it was for us?”

 

“We know he’s alive,” Beth said heatedly.

 

“Didn’t for a ways though,” Annie pointed out. “Maybe he thought we’d incriminate him somehow? So it was better to dip, with us thinking he was gone permanently?”

 

Beth shrugged. The supposition that he couldn’t be bothered to break things off with her, and had chosen ruining her life as the easier option, was like a dark hovering cloud, threatening to consume her faculties.

 

“Maybe it was useful for getting rid of some rival, or something to do with some other part of his business we weren’t privy to,” she said. “It’s not like I can just go ask. And not like I’d believe him if I could. I’m never going to trust another god damn word that comes out of his mouth.”

 

At least Annie and Ruby didn’t show any sign of wanting to argue with her about that.

 

Feeling emboldened, Beth continued, “And I don’t care why, I think we-”

 

Suddenly her sentence cut off as her eyes stretched in terror. “Shit,” she said. “I just thought of something.”

 

“ _What?_ ” the other two hissed.

 

 _Stupid, fucking stupid_. How could she not have realised it before?

 

“He had cameras in his loft.”

 

“Okay,” Annie said, “and, what, there’s a sex tape you don’t want surfacing?”

 

“God, _no_!” Nothing much of the sort had ever happened between them there, excepting her and Rio standing too close during an absurd game of twenty questions. And while that wasn’t exactly footage she desperately needed to see the light of day, it was hardly her top concern.

 

“I bet he’s got me shooting him on camera.”

 

“Ah,” said Ruby after a few tense seconds. “Maybe the deal he made with Turner’s on tape too, then?”

 

“I guess.” Beth sounded lacklustre.

 

“So you wanna try to steal the footage? We gonna pull a heist?”

 

“Hey, if you’ve got any suggestions for how to do that I’m all ears, Annie. But I’m more concerned that I might need a very good defence lawyer.”

 

*

 

Lawrence didn’t entertain her ‘hypothetical’ questions for all that long, comprehension dawning in his expression, along with something far more disappointed.

 

“ _Jesus_. I’m a tax lawyer,” he said before scribbling down the contact details of someone he claimed might actually be able to help her.

 

Beth nodded mechanically, fighting to keep her countenance fixed, not allowing it to stray into desperation territory.

 

He rose from his seat at her dining room table. She’d invited him to her home, for the first time, for this little chat. She’d been wary of meeting anywhere public, fearing prying ears.

 

“Look after yourself,” he said sadly as he went to leave. The _have a nice life, see you never_ , remained unsaid but the sentiment was evident nonetheless.

 

Beth was pretty sure she wouldn’t be seeing him ever again. About as clear on that as the fact that she should’ve cared that that was true.

 

*

 

The girls had convinced her to stage her run-in with Turner before involving Mer in any way. They were insistent about her covering her tracks too, asserting that there was no such thing as being too careful. Not only did they not want Turner tipped off, it was entirely plausible that Rio might be having Beth followed.

 

They had a sense of where Turner was living based on a couple of things that Derrick had let slip. So Beth went around checking out gym swimming pools over the next couple of weeks at a leisurely pace, before settling on one a little further than totally convenient, playing up that she’d been lured in by a discount.

 

When she did bump into Turner there, she hadn’t specifically planned to, it truly was a tiny accident. That likely aided in her attempts to come across as shocked and confused by their meeting.

 

“Agent Turner?” she asked, letting surprise twist her features. She allowed one hand to gently pinch at her other wrist, hoping that she wasn’t overdoing it.

 

He looked taken aback for a split second before an easy smile took over. “Jimmy,” he said, pointing at himself, before he added, “please. It’s been a while, Mrs Boland.”

 

She turned an index finger towards her own body. She wanted to say, ‘I divorced him’ or ‘call me Beth’ or, much, much more than she’d anticipated, ‘can’t you please tell me what the fuck is going on’. What tumbled out though was, “Elizabeth.”

 

Turner just dipped his head amiably. “How’s it going?”

 

She took a gamble, a calculated one. Turner might’ve known that she’d met with Rio several times since his apparent demise. He could have been keeping tabs on her, or have heard it from Rio’s own mouth.

 

“It’s… you’re really here?” She made it sound a shade shaky.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“God, sorry, I must sound crazy.” She forced a strained laugh to bubble out of her. “Just… I thought I saw _him_ the other day. And he’s, uh, well. You know.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she continued, “He’s _dead_.” Beth cleared her throat apologetically. “I must’ve been seeing things! But – well, I thought you left town ages ago? Seeing you startled me, that’s all.”

 

“I’m me, and I’m back in town.” Turner looked around furtively and stepped a little closer. “I can’t explain everything at the moment. But soon, maybe, Mrs- Elizabeth.”

 

It had been a mistake to tell him to call her that, she didn’t even understand why she’d done it. It wasn’t a moniker she wanted to hear from his mouth, or from anyone else’s. Still, the panic and discomfort it generated in her must have shown clearly on her face, helped her to sell her act even more.

 

*

 

Being comforted by Turner had felt… _wrong_. But the fact that he’d been strangely kind and even concerned about her was telling. She hadn’t stayed too long, needing desperately to get away from that galling source of sympathy.

 

Their brief interaction hadn’t exactly clarified much in terms of what plans Turner might have hatched, or what chicanery could be afoot involving him and Rio, but she did intrinsically believe that Turner wasn’t gunning for her this time around.

 

From then, it took a couple more months but eventually the girls had a real scheme, all ready to put into motion.

 

Beth had literally been about to step out her front door, on her way to go see Amber and kick things off, when the ringing of her phone had interrupted her.

 

The caller ID informed her that the number was blocked, and a sneaking suspicion stunned her, though she answered politely enough, trying to convince herself that it was a telemarketer.

 

“You see the news?” Rio’s recognisable, laconic inflection came, disrupting her intentions about as much as humanly possible, down the line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love angry Beth!!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But those feelings were quickly superseded by new emotions. Mostly with shock, a small crumb of something that seemed to resemble guilt, with space left over for a manic stream of elation.

Beth wanted, desperately, to be the kind of person who could complacently hang up on Rio. She wished very much that she had some witty, scathing remark primed in the chamber, ready to loose.

 

But she wasn’t, and she didn’t.

 

So, almost against her will, Beth found herself turning the TV to a local news station. It rankled that she was still, somehow, doing his bidding; that she was being such a pushover. But those feelings were quickly superseded by new emotions. Mostly with shock, a small crumb of something that seemed to resemble guilt, with space left over for a manic stream of elation.

 

There was no mistaking what she saw on her screen. Turner in cuffs, the coverage announcing that a federal agent had been arrested for multiple crimes including money laundering, and that he’d been tied to organised crime.

 

She sat down, hard. “Did you-” she began.

 

_Did you do this_ , was what she’d wanted to ask, but. The memory of Ruby’s warnings about possible wire taps, especially combined with this very visible arrest, gave her pause. And beyond that – did she really want to know the answer? And hadn’t she said she’d never trust a word out of Rio’s mouth again? She kept telling herself that there was no way she was getting pulled back into his bullshit.

 

“Did you have a good weekend?” she asked sweetly instead.

 

Rio said something to that, but she didn’t hear it. She’d already moved the cell from her ear, and quickly reached to disconnect the call before she could change her mind.

 

*

 

Hours later, Ruby and Annie by her side, was when Beth thought to cast an eye at her burner.

 

“Is it… is it really over?” Ruby asked, not for the first time that night, still sounding astonished, as Beth frowned at the screen.

 

There was a message there, just three little letters, ‘fin’.

 

“Guess so,” Beth said, holding it out so the others could see.

 

She turned the phone off decisively. Then, as if it were an afterthought, popped the back open and removed the SIM card, before triumphantly snapping the card in half.

 

So she was actually done; finally free.

 

Something still niggled though. So, that evening, after a few supposedly celebratory drinks (though the tone had been more weirdly _awed_ ), she took another look at her actual phone.

 

Once she’d unblocked Rio’s old number, she looked at the call log. Yep, her suspicion had been adequately founded, that _was_ the number he’d called her from earlier.

 

So he’d had the same damn phone number the whole time. If she’d wanted to talk to him at any point she could’ve easily, at the press of a button, supposing he’d deigned to answer. It was maddening, not least because she _knew_ he’d have gotten several kicks out of the fact. When she’d gone looking for him, when she’d stormed into his office, when he’d instructed her not to sext him for christ’s sake.

 

Ugh, he was infuriating. Her thumb hovered over his contact information as she willed herself to boss up and press delete. She reiterated mentally that she was beyond glad to have their ties severed. If there was something that felt a little like disappointment mixed in there, well that was just the crash from the adrenaline high. It was a normal, chemical reaction – one that didn’t mean anything.

 

*

 

The weeks did their thing, shuffling past. Beth was stuck into a very serious clear out mission, the garage was finally being tackled.

 

She’d been bringing things into the house, section by section, then sorting items into piles and disseminating. Plenty was for keeping (a healthy subset of which was going into storage), others were for immediate disposal, while some stuff seemed worthy of being donated or sold. The smallest heap was for Dean to do whatever he wanted with.

 

It wasn’t that she _needed_ the distraction, the bustle, but it was something she found soothing. Of late, Beth had been rethinking a lot of the aspects of her life. It had been a while since she’d been without the threat of criminal debt looming over her, and her last respite had hardly counted – she’d been grappling with her identity as a murderer for most of it.

 

There were plenty of parts she’d been considering changing – her hair, her clothes, her home. Much as she’d always loved the house, she wasn’t even sure she fit into the neighbourhood any more.

 

That was probably part of the impetus for the outfit, a bright red tank and black short shorts. It wasn’t the kind of thing she’d feel comfortable wearing _outside_ , she hadn’t changed that much, but for the lifting and sorting she was doing in the confines of her own home it was comfy and practical. Every time she caught sight of her reflection, she became a little entranced. It was nice, in this private way, to try on a different version of herself; to see how it fit.

 

A knock on the door interrupted her musings. There was a teeny echo of a glint of panic, there always was.

 

She was _pretty_ sure that Rio was gone. She’d not seen him, had no contact since the call enticing her to check out the news. He was a constant flow of surprises though, he’d popped up from the grave once, after all.

 

Maybe the searing anxiety over the possibility of it being him would cool over time. Perhaps one day she’d be able to answer a call from an unknown number without heated tension pricking at her from the inside, spreading out.

 

When she went to answer, she spied Amber and Meredith on the other side, through her peephole. They complimented her outfit, once she’d opened the door, making Beth blush prettily.

 

“We have news!” Amber announced, before the two showed off their matching rings, as soon as they were inside.

 

“You guys got engaged?”

 

“Yup, I proposed last night and Amber agreed to make an honest woman of me.”

 

“Oh, congratulations! We should celebrate.”

 

“We should,” Amber agreed, pleased, “but that’s not all.”

 

She and her now fiancée shared an affectionate smile, before Meredith broke the news.

 

“We’re moving to France, next month.”

 

“Wow! That’s… _exciting_.”

 

Amber nodded enthusiastically. “It is!” Then, “Uh, we should probably talk about what happens with the biz?”

 

Beth’s eyes slid, of their own accord, to Meredith. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her, it was just _weird_ being confronted with this little link to Rio, especially now all her others were done.

 

Mer just grinned and said, “I’ll give you two a minute,” all ease.

 

She started walking to the back yard, then called over her shoulder, “Hey Beth, you still smoking?”

 

“No, I’m back on the gum.” Beth gave a couple of exaggerated chews to demonstrate. “Ashtray’s still by the back door though.”

 

“Cool,” Meredith said as she patted her pockets, checking for cigarettes and a lighter, before grabbing the ashtray and heading outside.

 

Beth was suddenly suffused by a warm gladness that she’d never stooped to dragging Meredith into anything untoward. She led Amber into the living room, weaving around her stacks of stuff, so they could sit and talk.

 

“So did you fill her in?” Beth asked, once they were situated.

 

“No,” Amber replied, evenly. “But I want a clean, um, slate? Yeah, slate. For us now.”

 

Beth nodded in understanding.

 

“Do you want the business then?”

 

Beth stared at her. “Uhh… you mean I buy you out?”

 

“Oh you can just have it,” Amber said in an airy tone, making Beth’s eyes boggle. “It was your idea after all. As long as you still want to do it?”

 

And, yeah, she really, _really_ did.

 

Witnessing Turner’s downfall had helped coalesce what had been so unpleasant about the last time she’d seen him. He hadn’t seen her as a threat _at all_ , he’d totally bought her terrified damsel act. It had been _insulting_. If men were going to keep on underestimating her, she was damn well happy to take advantage of it.

 

“Yeah, Amber. That’d be nice.”

 

*

 

Not five minutes after Amber and Meredith had left, solemnly swearing there’d be proper engagement drinks with Ruby and Annie as well soon, Beth heard another knock.

 

Laughing to herself softly, hoping whatever they’d left behind hadn’t been one or both of the rings, Beth opened the door.

 

Standing outside this time though, was _Rio_.

 

He looked a little out of place, but that didn’t stop him from eyeing her steadily.

 

Would she have opened up the entrance to him if she’d had the sense to check who it was, rather than assuming, first? She’d like to think not, but it was impossible to be certain.

 

He’d always excelled at scrambling her responses; frequently delighted her in ways that made it easy to forget the hurt he could cause.

 

He looked unreasonably good, in a white t-shirt and faded jeans. There was a hole above the left knee that made her fingers itch with the urge to reach out. Whether the motivation was to fix or rip further or simply to touch the exposed skin, she had no idea.

 

Beth weighed her options, and eventually let him in with a weary sigh.

 

He carefully avoided touching her as he stepped inside, giving her a wide berth that at once made her feel both grateful and hollow.

 

For several irksome moments, once she’d shut the door after him, she worried that he wasn’t going to say anything at all, was simply going to keep staring at her and force her to be the one to make it all come to a head.

 

Finally though, he looked up, unseeing, towards the ceiling and said, like it pained him, “Thought we should talk, yeah?”

 

She maintained a stony demeanour, but grabbed the bottle of bourbon and a single glass, before leading him into the living room.

 

He hadn’t asked, but she still said, in an icy tone, “I need a drink. You don’t deserve one.”

 

He looked faintly amused, but she had no interest in his responses. At least not until she heard a curious, “Wassat?”

 

And, _shit_.

 

He’d found her board, in the discard pile. She’d forgotten it was even there.

 

“Nothing!” she tried, setting down the objects in her hand and turning to attempt to wrestle the board from his grasp. His hold remained firm, however.

 

She changed tack, exasperated. “It’s from _before_. When we were trying to work out what you were,” she made an elaborate hand gesture, Annie-style, “up to.”

 

“Shit, sweetheart, I didn’t know you cared.” His evident merriment just fanned the flames of her frustration.

 

Beth tried to suck in a calming breath. “Care about being murdered or arrested? Guess I’m just that basic.”

 

His expression sobered the tiniest amount, though he didn’t look in the least apologetic. “’Snot the best idea to keep shit like this in writing though.”

 

“Fine, whatever. I don’t need it any more.” This time when she pulled at the board, he relented, letting her have it.

 

She pushed at the sides, trying to fold it in half to snap it, but it was no use. Rio grabbed it back from her, with a mild shake of his head, and cracked it across the middle, with apparently minimal effort.

 

Which was _infuriating_. Beth knew she was no slouch in the strength department. Carrying children wasn’t exactly light work. The ease with which he could do that, the physical power he had, should have been an obvious warning to her traitorous body, not something for it to find unbearably hot.

 

He put the pieces down by the seat he’d claimed, before flopping into the chair, clearly indicating that he’d be taking them with him when he left. She had no idea if he’d want to burn them or frame them though. He was… _weird_.

 

She took a long gulp of her drink, then said, extremely carefully, “I assume you didn’t come here to paw through my trash?”

 

He made a face that she had no chance of interpreting before saying, “Thought y’might want an explanation.”

 

Oh, how she yearned to be able to tell him she didn’t care. The only thing stopping her was knowing how little she’d be able to pull that off.

 

She made a vague noise, and he just fucking _grinned_ at her. She couldn’t help noticing the amused but extremely intent glint in his eyes, so she chose to ignore it and re-focus his attention.

 

“Whatever you did to – with? – because of,” she struggled to find the right preposition but powered through, “Turner. You didn’t do it for me.” It wasn’t a question, it didn’t need to be.

 

He seemed to consider it though, which was – bizarre.

 

“Nah,” he conceded, “not how you’d mean.”

 

She rolled her eyes, random ambiguous statements from Rio, what a surprise.

 

But he soldiered on, “See, Turner was kinda obsessed with me.”

 

_That_ rubbed her the wrong way. “Umm, no. He was obsessed with me.”

 

“Me first.”

 

She looked at him, aghast. “It’s not a fucking competition!” It had been a mistake to let Rio in. Clearly he had some mind games and one-upmanship he wanted to play out, stuff her kids were practically too mature for, and she wasn’t interested.

 

“Darling, ain’t you ever considered _why_ he was so hung up on you?”

 

And yeah, she kind of had, Turner’s laser focus on her had seemed a little unfair. But she’d figured she’d stuck out like a sore thumb in the crime world for him. She’d been gettable, unprotected. And she’d definitely pissed him off.

 

“I’m interesting,” she said defensively. Rio laughed at that, full-bodied, without an ounce of meanness.

 

“See, the feds been on me a _while_. But they ain’t know that much about the operation. Had my fingers,” here he paused, to take the opportunity to wiggle his hand and smirk at her, “in a lotta pies. They had an idea ‘bout us cleaning cash, but not us making it.”

 

She moved her head in a slow bobbing beat, that seemed to track.

 

“Turner sees you, he sees what you can do for me.”

 

Beth took that in and turned it over. “He thought I could open doors for you?”

 

Rio inclined his head. “Meant it when I said he’d keep coming too, dog with a bone.”

 

“He certainly seemed to have some obsessive tendencies.”

 

“So putting on that shooting show for him… He thinks you in over your head, not the boss bitch he been tailing. And with him thinking we on the outs – suddenly peace and quiet on your end, yeah?”

 

She didn’t quite know what to say to that, so she pushed onwards. “And the deal you made with him afterwards? That’s how you managed to set him up?”

 

“Right. Poor bastard was so eager to get those other agencies involved too.” Rio’s grin was _feral_. It was hard to force herself not to beam back at him, his smug energy was infectious.

 

“So that’s what my instalments were for?”

 

“Right again.”

 

“But you couldn’t have known that he’d-”

 

“Oh, I was pretty sure he’d angle for something. Guy’s _hella_ shady.”

 

“You kidnapped me, terrified me, all for a set up?”

 

“Yeah,” he said, with an easy shrug.

 

“That’s insane.”

 

He looked impassive.

 

“What if I’d actually done what you asked and shot Turner?”

 

That made Rio laugh. “Yeah that’d be pretty funny.”

 

“Funny?!”

 

“Mighta had to bump him for real if he realised the bullets were fake. Offing a fed’s no joke.”

 

“Yes, that’s why I thought it was ludicrous you were asking me to do it!” Beth agreed with an exasperated force.

 

“Yeah,” he said with an eyeroll, like she was being slow. Then, “Not like you generally queen of common sense.”

 

Which, _rude_.

 

“So, what, you think you can predict exactly what I’m going to do, whenever? That’s. What?”

 

“Had a general idea, yeah.”

 

She narrowed her eyes in disbelief.

 

“Wasn’t the _only_ idea,” he added. “Boo, I got a back up plan to to the back up plan to back up my back up plan,” he half-sang the last part, then grinned expectantly at her, like he was waiting for her to get some reference.

 

Beth just looked blankly at him, ignoring the mannered impetus to offer him an apologetic smile, which only served to make him chuckle some.

 

“’Sides,” he continued, leaning a little serious again, “you ain’t exactly the first nice white lady who freaked out ‘bout me being dangerous.”

 

“That is not,” Beth said, enunciating each word precisely, “exactly how it went down.”

 

“What, you gonna start banging on ‘bout your black friend now?” he half-teased.

 

She snorted at that, but her mind whirred through her roster too, as she remembered that Amber and Meredith would soon be far away, and that things between her and Lawrence were definitely done. “Is it weird that I don’t have many friends?” The question had just slipped out.

 

“For you?” Nah.” He said it immediately, like he wasn’t supposed to be trying to get back into her good graces.

 

She looked affronted, her mouth hanging open.

 

“You kinda a terrible business partner,” Rio continued, which certainly didn’t make her feel any _less_ pissed off. “You selfish,” he started up again, counting off points on his fingers. She was dimly moved to wonder if that was something he’d always done or if he’d picked up the habit from her. “And stubborn, and you do silly shit.”

 

Beth cleared her throat, it was time to tell him to leave.

 

“Yeah, shitty business partner. You kinda hard work. But those things make me like you, outside that.”

 

_What_.

 

“Pardon?” She said it in the most exaggeratedly polite voice she could muster, which made him laugh again, big and bright.

 

“That so hard to believe?”

 

_Yes_.

 

And, besides, even it was nice to hear, it didn’t really change anything. He’d still done what he’d done.

 

“Were you even going to tell me?”

 

He looked at her like her question didn’t make sense. “What’m I doing now?”

 

“That’s not-” she started, but gave up. _Wasn’t it_ _the point_ _?_ Maybe there was a world out there somewhere where Dean hadn’t lost their money, or where he at least hadn’t hidden it from her. But that wasn’t the universe she was in, and honestly she didn’t feel regret over that any more.

 

Whatever Rio had been intending to do when he first set his plans in motion, however honest, or rather not, he’d meant to be with her, he’d turned up to tell her the truth of his own volition. Could it be that was all that mattered, in the end?

 

She tried again, “ _I’m_ not.” There was a helpless edge to her voice, but also a steely undertone.

 

He nodded once, his teeth barely brushing his lower lip, seeming to understand perfectly what she couldn’t vocalise.

 

“Know you’re pissed, mama.” It didn’t sound accusatory, or annoyed, or like he was going to try to convince her she ought to feel otherwise. “Maybe I can make it up to you?”

 

He waggled his eyebrows at her, suggestion perfectly clear.

 

And, _god_ , for whatever reason, even after everything, that certainly wasn’t _un_ tempting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like Rio is a Big Boi/Outkast fan :)
> 
> PS head's up, I think there's probably only going to be one or two more chapters of this, the end is in sight!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She could just about see his point, she supposed, but as the soon-to-be-owner of a costume store she didn’t feel it’d be right to indulge him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 13, (getting) lucky for some ;)

She let him try to make it up to her, a couple of times in fact, his head between her thighs, talented mouth and long fingers moving against and within her.

 

It was after her two consecutive orgasms that he raised up onto his knees to take a good look at her, one hand still stroking gently at her hip. He smiled lazily at what he saw and moved to dip back down, making her splutter in disbelief and roll away onto her side with her knees pressed up to her middle.

 

“Nyuagh,” she said in protest, in amazement, in general acknowledgement. The aftershocks were still rocking her body, she felt stunned and sated, and though she couldn’t really feel whatever her face was doing she assumed it showed her response to the experience pretty well.

 

“A good point,” he said, light and teasing, before slumping down flat on his back next to her, though not right up in her space, neck craned to get a full view of her expression.

 

She saw him opening his mouth to say something, and prepared herself for the inevitable; he’d be asking if they were square now, or maybe just assuming that they were.

 

“You auditioning for Wonder Woman then, or what?”

 

She squinted at him in confusion, were orgasm-induced auditory hallucinations a thing?

 

He raised an eyebrow, in that expert way, so she managed to conjure up a, “Huh?”

 

“Your clothes, y’know, back when you had ‘em on.”

 

She couldn’t actually see his face that well, her eyes had leaned into the squint and they were approaching half-closed, but she could hear that cocky smirk in his voice just _fine_.

 

Beth considered what she’d been wearing earlier. She could just about see his point, she supposed, but as the soon-to-be-owner of a costume store she didn’t feel it’d be right to indulge him.

 

“Do you even know what Wonder Woman’s outfit looks like?” She asked it primly, or at least as near as she could get under the circumstances.

 

She didn’t think she’d ever seen him, or perhaps anyone, look quite so offended as he did in response to her question; his features were scrunched in horror and his jaw couldn’t seem to decide where to settle. She found herself hopeless at holding back her ensuing giggles.

 

“Quite the fan then?” she asked when her amusement had subsided enough. “Subject of some teen fantasies?” She extended her right foot a little, to poke lightly at one of his thighs as she said it.

 

“Mighta been,” he said, turning to face her properly, with a look that practically shimmered with promise, as her foot lightly skimmed his crotch.

 

She could feel him, hard and straining, in his jeans, and it was kind of intoxicating how little he was doing about it. She’d never been so simply naked with him before, not when they weren’t actually having sex, and certainly not with him completely clothed. It was difficult to comprehend how weirdly okay she felt about it.

 

She doubted he was comfortable, but he didn’t seem to be moving to get her interested in that fact, or to get himself off. Instead he was just lying next to her, making strange small talk. She could sense that her featheresque ministrations were affecting him though, from the way his breath hitched and how his visage shifted.

 

“Aren’t you gonna,” she started, raising her right arm over her head as she stretched, unconsciously pushing into his space a little more as her back arched with it, “you know?” She looked up at him meaningfully, eyes wide, with her hand in her hair.

 

“Do what?”

 

Beth was never completely sure with him, but she had a strong sense that he was trying to bury his mirth from the way his lips fluttered.

 

She sighed in exasperation, though it didn’t seem to be possible to get the corners of her own mouth to turn _down_.

 

“Fuck me.” She managed to hold eye contact, didn’t look away, and it was definitely worth it as she got to see that giant grin transform his look.

 

“If you insist, mami.”

 

She nodded, all serious, then rolled onto her back. Stifling a little yawn she told him, “You’re wearing too many clothes.”

 

“Oh I am, am I?”

 

She didn’t bother replying, she could see that he was already stripping off his t-shirt and shimmying out of his jeans, despite his argumentative words.

 

“Condom,” she said decisively. They hadn’t always been so careful, but that wasn’t a reason to never be. Besides, if they’d never had a conversation about exclusivity back then, she had even less of an idea of where he’d been and with whom this time around.

 

“Uh huh,” he agreed, a little too evenly. “It’s your house,” he added, perhaps in response to something he saw in her face.

 

“You don’t have any?” she asked with a small pout, though her mind was already whirring. She knew she’d bought some a while ago, she just wasn’t completely sure where they’d ended up, especially after she’d rearranged her bedroom furniture again recently. She didn’t feel too much like dragging through all her drawers, but she would if she had to.

 

“Sounds terribly presumptuous,” his tone was obnoxiously blithe.

 

She narrowed her eyes in his direction, before pushing up onto her hands and knees with herculean effort and a put-upon moan. She half-crawled over him, and he groaned at the sight, blatantly ogling.

 

“Shut up,” she said, trying to brush it away, though the way it made her feel, being appreciated, wasn’t unpleasant.

 

“Nah,” he said. “Don’t think I’m gonna. Elizabeth, you _gorgeous_.”

 

She flushed, but found that for once that wasn’t such an annoyance for her.

 

Beth forced herself to not get distracted though, and reached to the ground, finding his jeans where he’d dropped them. Her hand dug through his back pockets, triumphantly pulling out a three-pack of condoms a moment later.

 

“How _could_ that have got there,” he asked in mock disbelief, a hand pressed to his heart.

 

“You’re a regular Mary Poppins,” she said dryly, earning her an amused snort from him.

 

She let the box fall onto the mattress, then flung the jeans back where she’d found them.

 

When Beth tried to crawl back off of Rio, to settle herself supine again, his hands found her hips.

 

“Don’t wanna stay up there?” he asked, trying to nudge her into straddling him.

 

She jerked out her lower lip and frowned. “I’m all tuckered out. Which is your fault.”

 

Rio smirked unrepentantly at that. He didn’t stop coaxing her limbs, and she found that her treacherous body didn’t seem to want to put up much protest so she sought for a more illustrative phrase.

 

“I’m… _boneless_.” She realised how ill-suited her choice of words had been, though her thighs truly did feel rather jellied still, when his eyes lit up.

 

“Oh if it’s a bone you want, sweetheart-”

 

“Do _not_ say it,” she whined, raising a hand to her forehead in despair, which only made it easier for him to manhandle her right on top of him successfully.

 

“Got one right here,” he continued, and she shook her head mournfully at him.

 

She didn’t find the position _unappealing_ though, as she ground lightly against him, pushing her hands onto his chest for leverage.

 

“See,” he said, looking proud as well as delighted, “you might be the bossiest person I ever met. You made to be on top.”

 

She’d never liked that word, bossy, it conjured up associations of shrillness, of unreasonable demands. But the way he said it didn’t sound like an insult, in fact it sounded more like an endearment than even a compliment.

 

“I’m the bossy one?” she asked sweetly. “You never get pissy when things don’t go your way? Or, I don’t know, spend a lot of time lecturing people on how you’re essentially royalty?”

 

He beamed at her in a way that almost numbed her into breathlessness as she wondered if perhaps he teased her so much because he enjoyed being needled at like that himself.

 

She moved her hips against him _hard_ , partially to distract herself but mostly because there was no reason not to, before practically growling, “You’re still wearing too many clothes.”

 

He motioned upward with his head and she grumbled before lifting herself so he could remove his boxers and put on a condom. She hadn’t really understood why he’d left his underwear on, why he’d seemed a little reticent to get this going. The idea of taking things slow seemed silly, if sweet, after everything that had happened between them already.

 

But then he pushed one of his fingers back inside her, and she was still so _slick_ from earlier and it felt so _good_ , stoking that ache that hadn’t gone away. Any annoyances, and really all her thoughts, were rapidly shoved aside.

 

He guided her onto him, and she pushed herself down slowly, working herself open on his cock, drawing out a breathy, “Ohhh.”

 

She drove herself on him in something of a daze, a little rhythm-less, enjoying the pressure on her clit as she rubbed against his skin. And he just fucking _took_ it while his hands roamed her body, letting her grind herself into a frenzy until she was moaning without pause.

 

It was great, more than, but she couldn’t quite get herself where she wanted, and he seemed to sense that her mewls were becoming tinged with a lick of frustration.

 

Suddenly, with a steadying hand on her hip, he started seriously pounding up into her, as she met his thrusts, her hips snapping again and again. And then she was starting to come for the third time, a finger on her clit that she couldn’t even remember moving there.

 

She couldn’t stop herself from reaching down and pressing her lips to his, and he just _melted_ into her mouth, tongue fucking her there like he had her pussy. The hand that wasn’t gripping her hip came up to cradle the back of her head, holding her in place as he kissed her senseless.

 

Her muscles squeezed around him and she felt him tensing underneath her. She felt the same languid pleasure at the idea that she’d made him come that she had every time.

 

They stayed like that for a moment when they were done, just panting and staring, before she felt his hand pinching at the base of the condom and she rose gingerly before finally lying back down.

 

She heard him get up, dispose of the condom, maybe clean up some, but her eyes were shut and her mind mostly blank.

 

When the bed dipped under his weight again, she couldn’t _not_ smile. She forced her eyelids open, took in how he was sitting, a little unsure, against her headboard. It reminded her of the last time she’d seen him like that, and a hard pang rippled through her chest.

 

She reached a hand out to him, felt relieved when he took it slowly, letting his thumb stroke her wrist in tiny circles.

 

“You any good at being a little spoon?” she asked, not bothering to try to keep the tiredness out of her voice.

 

“Dunno,” he said, sounding almost a little harsh, with a shrug. But then, considering, “Could try?”

 

She nodded, letting her gladness colour her face, opening her arms wide for him to slip into, his back against her front.

 

It felt good, natural, soothing. She wasn’t sure she felt ready to be enveloped by him, he could be so overwhelming. And she’d never been one for being too warm, that was part of why she could handle the Michigan winters so well, being snuggled by someone often felt rather cloying for her. But this, being a comfort to someone while controlling the cuddle, that was something she could do.

 

“That was,” she mumbled vaguely, sort of near his ear, one hand rubbing softly at the skin of his belly.

 

“Really fucking dope?”

 

“Yeah,” Beth agreed, voice half-swallowed by sleep, “that’s what I was gonna say, really fucking dope.”

 

She let slumber drag her under.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beth Boland 100% exudes big spoon energy


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The memories came flooding back in a rush, pink tinting her cheeks like she’d freshly applied rouge. She turned with a little trepidation, not sure what to expect and equally unconvinced as to what to hope for.

Beth’s sleep was light, like always, and couldn’t have lasted more than an hour, tops.

 

When she came to, she found that she’d shifted during her nap, lying smooshed on her front in a position that she hadn’t considered a choice one ever since puberty hit.

 

She must have gone out _hard_ she surmised, as she registered that the comforter seemed to be all tangled around her ankles and that her pillow was speckled with drying drool, to have burrowed down into the mattress like that. It normally only happened when she – _oh_.

 

The memories came flooding back in a rush, pink tinting her cheeks like she’d freshly applied rouge. She turned with a little trepidation, not sure what to expect and equally unconvinced as to what to hope for.

 

Rio, it transpired, was still present, propped up on an elbow and eyeballing her like she was providing top entertainment with her slow realisations. There was less of that familiar intensity in his gaze, if she’d had to name what he seemed to embody in the moment she might’ve been forced to go with… _chill_.

 

She glanced down the equally uncovered length of him, mostly unintentionally, and registered that he’d put his boxers back on, though nothing else.

 

_Good_ , she decided, _that’s good_. The atmosphere still felt pleasantly intimate and unreal, but not overwhelmingly sexual necessarily. As her attention roved back to his face, Beth became increasingly aware of feeling sweatily sour. She kind of wished she’d had the energy to shower or something before snoozing, the sheets definitely needed changing and-

 

And, oh yeah, she was very _not dressed_.

 

“Uh, did you sleep?” she asked, as she tried to surreptitiously disentangle the cover with some small kicks. Her eyes flicked nervously to her nearest robe as she did so.

 

“Mm,” he said with a quick nose wrinkle and a slight head movement, which she took to mean ‘not really’, as he dug behind himself for something on the floor.

 

She wondered if this was him getting ready to go, if he’d waited for her to wake before doing so. That sounded absurdly polite for him though.

 

He picked up his t-shirt with a pleased sigh, and she assumed she had been right, tried to feel nothing about it. But then he offered it to her, a quizzical set to his posture.

 

Beth slipped it on gratefully. Between them they almost made one respectable outfit, not that she’d be eager to face the outside world braless in a white tee. Her semi-outfit helped to maintain the air of private comfortableness, despite the way Rio’s scrutiny practically _caress_ _ed_ her nipples in it.

 

“God, was I snoring?” she asked, a little apologetically. Beth grabbed for the glass of water on her bedside table, half-draining it, fast.

 

“Maybe a little.”

 

An embarrassed whine erupted from her.

 

“’Not loud though,” he elaborated. And she would’ve been prepared to believe him, if he hadn’t tacked on, “Kinda cute.”

 

A disbelieving frown cut its way onto her face, but she politely held out her glass of water to him. Rio declined, indicating that he’d already sourced his own. The cup from her bathroom was on the little shelf by his head that she’d put up a couple of weeks prior.

 

“Not like Marcus,” he continued. “Swear sometimes I been sure a train about to smash into me outta nowhere, the noises that kid makes in his sleep.”

 

That had surprised sympathetic laughter burbling from her, her children sure could make serious sleep-noises too, despite their small stature.

 

Somewhat dressed, and companionably giggling, she felt on slightly firmer footing. But then her vision snagged on the cup on the shelf again and. Well. It was just a little overwhelming how _domestic_ the scene leaned. Him watching her wake, after apparently settling himself comfortably, sort of claiming a space for himself.

 

“Gotta pee,” she announced abruptly, not looking for his reaction, before stumbling off to the bathroom.

 

_That’s just what he’s like_ , she rationalised, while she was sitting on the toilet. _He’s used to reshaping the world to his w_ _him_ _, there’s no point reading into it_ , she reminded herself as she stared at her reflection.

 

“You wanna smoke?” he called out to her.

 

She popped her head back out during a toothbrushing break to say, “I gave that up,” before going to spit in the sink.

 

“The thing about having quit...” His voice sounded closer this time.

 

“Uh huh,” she answered. “Doesn’t mean I _have_ any.” Although she wondered if that was actually true, could Meredith have left some? The calming effects of nicotine were sounding more and more appealing, the nearer he got. At least she definitely still had some of the gum around.

 

When he appeared in the bathroom he was holding his jeans out to her. Her eyes fluttered with… with _something_ as she dug into first one front pocket, then the other, exposing a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

  
“Well played, Mary.”

 

“Yeah,” he said, clearly fronting a challenge, “you not calling me that.”

 

“We’ll see,” she answered coolly, before heading to open the French doors so they could smoke outside.

 

They ended up slumped near to each other on the back step, sharing first one then another. Thankfully they’d found an old candle out there that served as a makeshift ashtray, she truly couldn’t be bothered to wander more than was completely needed.

 

There were some words that she wanted to get out, and sitting side-by-side, not quite looking at each other, in the cool fresh air seemed a better place to tackle them than naked in bed.

 

“I don’t know if this,” she started in a rush, without preamble, but came to a sudden stop. From what she could see out of the corner of her eye it seemed that Rio was intrigued, but he didn’t jump in.

 

She kept her sights set straight ahead, and tried again with, “I’m not sure if you.”

 

No, that still wasn’t right. “I have no idea if this – that – is going to happen again.”

 

“Oh, if you ready to go again sweetheart, I’m down.” There was an unmistakable lascivious lilt to his words, but it also sounded somewhat like a posture, a reflex; like more and more of his tells were starting to, in fact.

 

“Shut _up_ ,” she said plaintively, trying to ignore how the mere suggestion started up that snaking of sensual heat through her all over again.

 

He tutted quietly, but she thought she felt his energy shift into something more obviously attentive.

 

“ _But_ ,” she continued, “if it does, you should know I might want to sleep with other people.”

 

Once she’d pushed that thought forth into the world, she turned her head to face him, breath stuck in her throat.

 

“Cool.”

 

That had her belly flipping, though she wasn’t sure if it was due to the surprising ease of his acceptance to something she’d said, or his lack of resistance to the specific concept.

 

Perhaps something of that showed in her face because he added, “Both grown-ups, yeah? Might not wanna _hear_ ‘bout it, but I get it.”

 

She shifted her front out towards her garden again, staring out, not conscious of seeing much of anything.

 

“You ain’t mean _together_ , right?”

 

Her head snapped back so fast she’d have worried she had whiplash if her brain hadn’t whited out briefly due to the extremely unexpected interpretation he'd introduced.

 

“No,” she said, completely scarlet, “that is not what I meant.”

 

His head tilted agreeably, before he leaned back some, propping himself up on his elbows.

 

“I’m from Toronto,” he said, thought it sounded more like ‘Chrwanna’, and even if Beth hadn’t been gobsmacked by how the conversation was going it still might have taken her a moment to untangle his meaning.

 

“Okay.”

 

He gave her a look that bordered on irritation. “Tom Wait’s from Cali, you and Iggy’s here. Me, Toronto. If you still wondering.”

 

_Ah_.

 

“Thanks,” she said, unsure of what other response could possibly be appropriate. She’d spent so long searching for intel on him, like every morsel was precious and powerful, to have any pearls casually offered was practically dizzying.

 

He craned his face up to the sky, squinting at the fluffy clouds, and she rejected the immediate instinct to chide him for staring at the sun like he was one of her dependents. “ _And_ ,” he added, speaking upwards as if she were merely an observer to a monologue, “don’t usually sleep that well, out my own beds.”

 

She wasn’t sure what that indicated, if he was cautious, bordering on paranoid, or just too fussy about thread counts and the firmness of mattresses.

 

Nonetheless, his openness compelled her to try to explain herself better.

 

“I’ve not been – um. I mean, there’s not been a lot of. Ugh.”

 

God, she found this, found herself, so fucking embarrassing. He’d had several parts of his anatomy inside of her _extremely recently_ , if she could look him in the eyes after that, then explaining a simple thing that he probably already knew or at least suspected about herself shouldn’t get her so tongue-tied.

 

“I was married for a long time,” Beth settled on. “And it’s not like I cheated on him.”

 

“That so, ma?” Rio asked, shuffling back up into a properly seated position again.

 

Beth looked at him with consternation.

 

“Seem to remember some bar bathroom break. And that dumb fuck hanging outside.”

 

The look he gave her seemed a far cry from judgemental, but she was still flustered.

 

“Well, we were separated already then. I mean. Sort of. And, er, anyway, he’d already had sex with half the city by then. So.”

 

“He’s a moron,” Rio said dismissively, though not without heat.

 

“You know,” Beth began, and she felt Rio, who had apparently pulled closer to her than she'd realised when he'd sat back up, stiffen beside her like he thought she was about to defend Dean. “With a little distance, and thinking about him as a whole, not just with me… He really might be the silliest person I’ve ever met.”

 

That had Rio rolling, warm laughs crackling their way out of him.

 

“So,” he asked, “just me and him?”

 

Beth felt panic pricking at her. She’d just wanted to get the facts acknowledged, alluded to, not to have to _discuss_ her sexual history with him, for god’s sake.

 

But Rio didn’t seem to be mocking her, or even trying to drag the conversation into a come-on cul-de-sac, he just seemed _interested_.

 

She took a deep breath. “Err, no actually. There was a guy when I was seventeen, Aaron Green. Dean and I had broken up, and he’d gone off with his family for the summer. Aaron was visiting his grandparents here for a couple of months, and I guess we had a fling? He was-” Beth broke off, trying to find the ideal phrasing.

 

“Lemme guess, trouble?”

 

“No. Well, maybe. I guess he marched to the beat of his own drum. He was quiet. And _sweet_. He wrote me poems.” She laughed a little, memories she’d abandoned decades ago suddenly flooding back into consciousness, “He was always barefoot.”

 

Rio nodded easily. “So what happened?”

 

She wiggled, uncomfortable. “Thought you didn’t want to hear about this kind of thing?”

 

“Stuff in the past? Nah, not what I meant.” His hands spread open.

 

“Well,” she said, clearing her throat. “He went home. Dean’s vacation finished, and we got back together, obviously. I tried not to think about him, Aaron, too much. A couple of years later his grandparents told me that he’d. There’d been a swimming accident. He drowned.”

 

Rio whistled on an intake of breath, and took one of her hands tentatively.

 

Beth _didn’t_ cry, but it was a near thing. She couldn’t _imagine_ having ever been able to confess that to Dean, and certainly not receiving sympathy from him about it.

 

“I, uh, slept with my lawyer a few months ago too.” He hadn’t _exactly_ been her lawyer, but she wasn’t sure semantics were that important.

 

“Get a discount?” Rio joked, presumably trying to lighten the mood. She still shoved at his shoulder in annoyance.

 

He made a show of pretended pain, “Anyone ever tell you to use your words? You real aggressive, damn.”

 

She shook her head, wanting to suggest that maybe she had so much pent up tension from putting up with so much of his nonsense, but sure that would only lead to some entendre about his availability for stress relief.

 

“Also,” she said instead, “Annie seems pretty convinced that I’m bi.”

 

“Sound like something you’d know more about than her,” he said diplomatically.

 

Beth wasn’t so sure. Had she known she was capable of robbery, or falling into bed with not just a crime boss but _her_ crime boss, or putting three bullets in someone?

 

She wasn’t certain she was precisely the poster child for self-awareness.

 

He lit another cigarette, and she took it with relief when he offered it up.

 

“Annie also thought you were a vampire.”

 

His hand hovered near her, and a couple of fingers reached out to stroke a mark on her neck. It wasn’t quite a hickey, more a couple of bite marks left from his blunt teeth just before he’d peaked beneath her, something that shouldn’t take too long to heal.

 

“You worried?” he teased.

 

She looked down at the ground. “Generally.”

 

His fingers moved to under her chin, not quite forcing her to look up at him, but strongly suggesting it.

 

However much they disagreed at times, there was some gratification in seeing someone who was also a criminal and a parent, an avid planner and someone who people often turned to for the answers, coping with their life just fine.

 

“Anyway,” she said, hoping to steer the conversation along, “That’s why I. Yeah.”

 

“Said it’s cool, man.”

 

That did light her up inside. As much as she’d come back around to the pet names and the Elizabeths, there was something about him including her in some generic ‘man’ that she deeply enjoyed. Like she was his equal, or even his _friend_.

 

“You start feeling different ‘bout what you want, we should talk, ‘k?”

 

She bobbed her head in acknowledgement, but then thought, “Hey, what about you?”

 

“Me?” he said with a smirk, “Oh, doubt I’ll be changing on that any time soon.”

 

Well that was… _disappointing_ , even if that feeling was tinged with hypocrisy, but she admired that he was at least being honest with her. And, frankly, she was still riding high over the fact that he wanted to tell her anything at all. It was probably pathetic.

 

“Elizabeth,” he admonished, sounding, really, unreasonably sore. She looked at him properly then, groping for an understanding of that complex expression adorning his countenance that she simply couldn’t fathom.

 

“Not saying I’mma be a saint if you wanna carte blanche it,” he offered, hands fluctuating like having to explain himself was truly bothersome. “But that ain’t something I been looking for.”

 

_God_.

 

She desperately wanted to ask _for how long_ , but she didn’t seem to be able to find her voice.

 

Which didn’t matter, because he seemed perfectly capable of reading her mind, making her want to give that vampire theory a little more consideration. “Since last time I was here, at least.” He paused, then added, "Been thinking on you a lot. Just you." He looked almost _wrecked_.

 

She didn’t swoon, obviously, and her heart definitely didn’t grow three sizes. She wasn’t a heroine in a romance novel, or a Disney princess, or the protagonist of a Dickens story.

 

But she did feel some kind of way about it. And she did lead him back to her bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you've ever heard a Torontonian pronounce their city's name I assume you know what I mean about the pronunciation ;)
> 
> PS pretty sure there's just one more chapter to go


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She almost couldn’t understand when she’d gotten so comfortable telling this violent, mercurial, imposing man to shut up, even if her attempts didn’t have a great success rate. But then again, had she been doing it right from their early days, in a way? Calling him an idiot, and daring him to have her killed?

Later, after Rio’d fucked her so artfully, deep into the mattress in a way that legitimately made her see stars and had her wondering briefly if her skin might be chemically bonding with the sheet somehow in the aftermath, Beth found herself too exhausted to even sleep.

 

It wasn’t a sentiment that made all that much sense, though bafflement at what was going on in her life was at least familiar. It reminded her a little of the aftermath of that ill-advised time, back when they had both been mere teens, when Dean had convinced her to try shrooms with him.

 

She’d found herself intensely overwhelmed quickly on that long ago evening, and had wandered home, alone, to sleep it off. But every time she’d shut her eyes she’d been overwhelmed with sensory input – the feel of the bedding against her skin, the smell of her own hair, and treated to explosions of multi-coloured fractals on the inside of her eyelids.

 

Just like then, her every breath, and all the physical awareness that came with each exhale, was full of fascinations for her as she came down from her orgasmic high.

 

“Rio?” she gasped as much as asked, in a way that she probably wouldn’t have had she been a little more in control of her faculties.

 

“Mm?”

 

He didn’t look up at her, his eyes seemed half-lidded but she had the distinct impression that was more because they were angled at her uncovered breasts than actual tiredness.

 

She wondered if she ought to mind the _obvious_ staring, or worse do anything about it. Either sounded rather difficult.

 

“Christopher?”

 

“Mmph?”

 

This time his gaze traversed her chest and neck, coming all the way up to meet her own.

 

She hoped that schooling her face into an expression of curiosity was enough to convey her question.

 

As his teeth played with his lower lip, both sides of his mouth turned up lazily.

 

“What, sweetheart? Ain’t you got no middle name?”

 

Her tired, sex-addled brain took longer than usual to parse that, and she wasn’t exactly surprised to find that puzzlement had radiated across her countenance without her say-so. She wasn’t capable of putting up much in the way of defences, all fucked-out and pleasure-soaked.

 

“C’mon, barely a double negative,” Rio muttered with a delicate sniff.

 

Beth flung a palm over her face. “Why do you always know what I’m thinking?”

 

When she moved her hand, she found that he was looking at her askance. “Hope you don’t play poker with that face.”

 

She, only just, held back from pointing out the obvious – that it was her only face or that it was his fault she was all loose and pliant.

 

“I’m great at poker,” she protested instead.

 

His eyes shifted around in obvious derision.

 

“I’m an _excellent_ liar.”

 

“Uh huh,” Rio replied, somehow conveying that he felt extremely dubious about the truth of that while keeping his tone fairly mild.

 

She immediately found his disbelief in her superpower to be _rude_. But upon, necessarily slow, second thought, Beth considered that perhaps her greatest mendacious successes had been with strangers.

 

The people who knew her the best, her sister and her best friend and even, annoyingly, sometimes her ex-husband, tended to be able to see through her falsehoods fairly well.

 

So, conceivably, all of Rio’s irksome little insistences that he could read her were just… indications that he’d been paying attention.

 

She struggled up to a half-sitting position and, after some fumbling, found the t-shirt of his that she’d been wearing earlier. She ignored his noise of protest when she pulled it on.

 

“Yeah, well,” she said, sounding a little tart, “just because I don’t spend all my time _grimacing_ at people-”

 

“I don’t grimace,” he interrupted, with a little more heat than she’d been expecting.

 

Beth fought to keep her face straight. “You _so_ do.” She swiped one finger, light and slow, over the centre of his forehead, “You’re getting a line, see?”

 

“Nothing weird ‘bout _grown-ups_ having lines on their face.” He threw in a small shrug with it, and something about the intentional casualness of his tone and the gesture made her narrow her eyes.

 

“How old _are_ you?”

 

"How old you think?” And it was the way he said it - a little slick, too practised - along with _that_ exact kind of smile, that told her he’d said those words too many times.

 

She knew that this was some kind of party trick, that he’d probably always looked younger than his years. Hell, it was a game she’d been pretty good at herself once, before the pile of kids got so large as to nearly always give her away.

 

“Hmm,” she said pretending to scrutinise, to give it actual thought. “I dunno, seventy-five? No, eighty?”

 

He looked completely shocked for a wild second, but that quickly morphed into diverted delight.

 

“ _Wow_ ,” he drawled, aiming for offended and missing the mark entirely. “Think you got jokes, huh?”

 

“Not sure what you mean, I’m just going off the evidence.” Her hand scraped over his dark hair, “You’ve gone grey, right? And that’s a huge bald spot.”

 

Beth poked his decidedly firm abdomen next, “So soft.”

 

He snorted several times in quick succession, and she could see his shoulders shaking with suppressed mirth.

 

God, did he even _have_ insecurities? She was glad that she hadn’t seemed to stumble into any as she teased him, anyway.

 

They quieted after that, and she just focussed on breathing; took in how the rise and fall of her chest felt against the soft cotton. Until she became aware that he was humming faintly, just on the edge of her perception. It seemed a tad random, she couldn’t remembering hearing him do that before – but then again he was definitely an odd guy.

 

She found herself singing along though as he got louder, not quite able to place where she knew the lyrics from, until it got to the chorus and she recognised it, ‘Goodnight Irene’. Her eyes widened to the point that it must have been almost comical.

 

Of course the bastard knew her middle name already, couldn’t leave a single stone unturned when it came to making fun of her.

 

“You’re such a dick!”

 

“Oh? Way I recall, you weren’t complaining ‘bout my _such a dick-_ ”

 

She didn’t even admonish him, just clamped a hand over his mouth. Not that that did much to discourage him, as he began sucking and teasing at first one finger, then the next in succession.

 

She almost couldn’t understand when she’d gotten so comfortable telling this violent, mercurial, imposing man to shut up, even if her attempts didn’t have a great success rate. But then again, had she been doing it right from their early days, in a way? Calling him an idiot, and daring him to have her killed?

 

He pulled his lips off of her thumb with a satisfied pop, and she shivered a little.

 

“You got a nice voice,” he said, interrupting her reverie, like him tonguing her digits was a natural prelude to a bit of musical chat. “How come I never find you listening to tunes?”

 

“Oh,” she said, feeling weirdly embarrassed to answer that truthfully. But she remembered that she’d seen the inside of his apartment, had gotten a glimpse at how he lived.

 

“I used to have a pretty good vinyl collection – stuff from my parents and yard sales. But then Dean, um.” Rio pulled a face, and it made Beth want to cackle.

 

“Well, he got some newfangled sound system, and all my stuff got booted to the garage. I’m hoping it’s still in there, with the speakers, should get to it eventually in my clear out. He took his stupid sound system with him when he moved out, and good riddance.”

 

Beth wrinkled her nose, thinking of that old enemy that has scratched up one too many of her CDs. She’d given up on reproducing her collection with a new format years ago.

 

“Want a hand getting that stuff outta there?”

 

“Oh!” She knew she sounded shocked. “That’s not- you don’t have to do that.”

 

One shoulder raised in an easy, relaxed way. “Don’t mind.”

 

*

 

After showering, separately, they spent a little while on digging and gathering. Beth ended up ordering pizza for them, one margherita and one smothered in vegetables and mushrooms, from the nice place, not the one she used for the kids. She hadn’t realised how famished she was until it arrived.

 

She’d not even considered returning Rio’s shirt or dressing properly, so when the door went she panicked a little, before heading quickly towards her bedroom. Rio emerged from it, before she could get there though, one of her robes tied loose around him, before he opened the door and she watched him yacking it up with the driver.

 

Not for the first time, nor probably the last, Beth was struck with a hungry jealousy towards _men_. He could stand there, barely dressed and completely at ease with this stranger, something that didn’t seem like an available option for her. At least he was pleasant to look at while he did it.

 

After chowing down, and once they had the speakers working, his fingers riffled rapidly through one of the boxes of records he’d brought in, picking something out.

 

“’80s Joni is criminally underrated,” he announced, holding out _Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter_ for her to see, before going to play it.

 

“You’re not wrong. But I think that’s from the ‘70s, actually.”

 

“Decade bleed,” he countered, with a nonchalant roll of his neck.

 

He dropped the needle, and ‘Paprika Plains’ began to sound.

 

“Oh,” said Beth, trying to keep it from sounding like a rebuke, “that’s the wrong side.”

 

“This side’s better.”

 

His face remained tranquil, while Beth gaped at him, clearly aghast.

 

“Joni ain’t never gonna know,” Rio promised with a wink.

 

She didn’t dance _with_ him, just swayed happily, eyes closing as she got lost in the music, near where he stood. Where he very obviously still _was_ , a fact that she was trying to not let break her brain.

 

“So, what?” she asked eventually. “You took the day off?”

 

“Something like that.”

 

*

 

At some point they ended up seated in her kitchen again, scoffing more of the pizza.

She’d been a little worried that letting him see how lazy she could get with the basics - not bothering to cook or even acknowledge distinct meal times - when her children weren’t around and she had few responsibilities over the weekend might open her to his ridicule or even reproach. But he seemed perfectly content.

 

Maybe he couldn’t always attend to such things either, what with his hectic schedule, she reasoned. Perhaps he too relished in some ways the chance to be a little messier, at least infrequently.

 

“Okay,” she decided, observing him as he ate.

 

“Okay?”

 

“Yeah, okay.” She inhaled deeply before, “I don’t think you grew up wealthy. Everyone I’ve ever met who did is _awful_. Like, more obnoxious than even you.”

 

He huffed, but just the once, otherwise staying quiet.

 

“You’ve got fancy tastes though. So maybe there were some rich people around, on the periphery?”

 

“Could be I just like classics,” he countered, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear.

 

Beth purposefully ignored him. “I think you were in school plays,” she blurted.

 

One of Rio’s eyebrows arced upwards.

 

“Well I know you like the arts. Paintings, sculpture, music, whathaveyou. Theatre’s not a huge leap. You’re clearly a keen observer of people. You like wordplay – terrible wordplay, I might add. And you’re dramatic as shit. So yeah, school plays.”

 

Her fingers drummed, briefly.

 

“Hmm, what else? Oh, I think you might be an only child. I didn’t see any photos of siblings when I– well, at your place. Wait, is that cheating?”

 

He shook his head, face gentle. She wasn’t even sure what game they were _playing_ , and she’d been the one to invent it, so she knew asking for a ruling from him shouldn’t make a lick of sense, and yet.

 

“Nothing wrong with using all the tools at your disposal.”

 

She filed that one away for later.

 

“You’re not quite as batshit as most of the only children I’ve met. Oh, oops, I’m sure Marcus will grow up fine,” she rushed it out, feeling a little guilty.

 

“Don’t trip, I read all them parenting an only child things.” He didn’t appear to be offended, if anything just seemed to to find her words _funny_.

 

She nodded, like she knew what he was referring to. She’d always wanted a brood, and self-help books had hardly been her thing. The image of him, for some reason in reading glasses though she’d never seen him wear any, diligently researching childcare strategies still made her insides _melt_ though.

 

“So,” she tried to get herself back on track. “So I figured you were raised around a lot of other kids then? Cousins? Family friends? A weird hippy commune?”

 

He laughed in a way that sounded cheerier than usual, almost like he was revisiting some happy memory.

 

“In fact,” she said, “I know for _sure_ you’re an only child.”

 

He gestured for her to go on with the hand his chin wasn’t propped up on, the slice of pizza he’d been attending to previously placed back in the box.

 

“You’ve spent a fair chunk of time with Annie, right, overall. And you’ve _never_ said anything about her reminding you of an annoying sibling. No one on this planet has that much self-control.”

 

She looked triumphant at her sound reasoning.

 

“Anything else?” His expression was somewhere between taunting and indulgent.

 

“I don’t think you’re a vampire. Probably.” Beth sat back fully, round concluded. “How’d I do?”

 

“Not awful,” he said, letting how clearly entertained he was shine through.

 

He didn’t seem to be willing to give her anything more specific than that, but she wondered if she might have some tricks in her arsenal to help convince him.

 

*

 

“You know we ain’t working together any more,” he said decisively, during a lull.

 

She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a warning hand. “Bad idea. Maybe always was, sorta. You doing your thing. I’m doing mine. It’s cool, long as we ain’t stepping on each other’s toes.”

 

Her face fell a little. “Well with the fake money – isn’t that…?”

 

“Nah,” he said, buoyant, “flipped my game.”

 

 _Of course_ he had.

 

“But I kind of liked working with you. Sometimes.” Her eyes flickered as she tried to weigh up how truthful that was; there'd definitely been some troughs mixed in with the peaks.

 

“Nah you don’t.” Before she could argue, he added, “You just like me.” He sounded cocky as hell. “You really like laughing, mama.”

 

That threw her for a loop. If she cast an eye over their potted history as colleagues, laughter wasn’t the emotional reaction that sprung to mind or peppered many memories. Maybe he was getting the two of them confused, she’d amused _him_ a lot in their dealings, often unintentionally.

 

Besides, “Everyone likes laughing, don’t they?”

 

He squinted at her like _that_ was an odd thing to say, as if he didn’t think about her being part of some mass of ‘everyone’, and it made her breath catch.

 

“We can still discuss biz, if you wanna?” He offered. “I like hearing your ideas. They wacky as hell sometimes. But they always interesting.” His smile was small, but it felt real. “If you want advice, I’m around. But getting too into each other’s shit? Messy.”

 

She couldn’t really argue, it sounded eminently sensible, and honestly she already had a couple of good things going, didn’t particularly need the extra money, or the hassle.

 

But. That was the thing they did together, crime. The reason they knew each other at all. Dissolving that, no matter what else either of them had said, made this weird as hell day with him seem almost like a farewell.

 

He sighed, and it sounded _very_ irritated, but when he spoke his voice was soft. “Tell you what, how ‘bout we each allowed to cash in a favour. Say, one a year?”

 

“Calendar year, or financial?” she asked immediately, a response ingrained from the dealership. If Dean could just _realise_ that it was a question that mattered they’d probably have far fewer issues with suppliers and-

 

She grasped what an irrelevant question that was for the situation though when she caught his amused smirk.

 

“Dealer’s choice.”

 

It was only after that, catching up, that she discovered she’d skipped right past the part where he suggested he maybe wanted to do this for multiple years to come. Which was probably just as well, she didn’t think that was a concept she could tackle head on.

 

*

 

He spent the night, and she woke before him, relishing the opportunity to observe his features softened by what she could tell was a light sleep.

 

It wasn’t a surprise when he stirred not long after, but she still felt gladdened that he’d stayed, and that he’d managed to drift off for at least a while.

 

Glancing at his watch caused him to groan, though it was early still.

 

“Gotta head,” he announced, and that wasn’t exactly shocking either, she’d already had far more of him than she could have anticipated.

 

Still, though. “Wanna shower?” she asked softly. He looked tempted for an initial instant, but then regretful resolve tightened over him.

 

“Nah, can’t. Gotta swing by mine and grab some shit anyway. And if I don’t leave now, might not leave at all.”

 

He leered at her, probably mostly joking, but she still pinked up and smiled in a bashful way.

 

She was about to offer to make him some coffee, or at least find him a breakfast snack, when he stilled her thoughts by kissing her lips. It was just one quick kiss, didn’t really linger, but she appreciated how _firm_ it was.

 

Her eyes drifted shut on impact, and by the time she’d peeled them back open he’d clambered out of her bed and pulled his jeans on, was patting his pockets and glancing around.

 

Her fingers played with the hem of his t-shirt, the one she was still wearing, a little uncertainly.

 

It was stupid but she almost didn’t want to return it. It wasn’t that she needed a memento, she was definitely not someone that was into trophies, and she’d been on a _serious_ decluttering mission of late.

 

It was just that the entire rollercoaster ride of this encounter had been so bizarre, so flecked with the unlikely, that she could already tell she’d have trouble believing it had all happened once he’d gone. For all the pretty words that he’d spilled, for every suggestion there was that he wanted to do this repeatedly and on her terms, her capacity to trust or believe him had been wounded too many times.

 

Some part of her wasn’t sure she’d see him again, and another worried that if she did it’d come with a price she wasn’t willing to pay – another gun in one of their faces, more lies and half-truths, her playing the part of a pawn in one of his games.

 

And besides, it was _so soft_. Maybe now that she was actually doing well financially she ought to take a leaf out of his book, start splurging on some luxuries for herself.

 

He shook his head, in a way that would have hardly been perceptible if she hadn’t become so attuned to him.

 

“Keep it. Looks better on you anyway.”

 

*

 

He’d strode off, bare chested, and _who does that_ , she’d though almost irritably, not focussed on how _good_ he’d looked, not at all. She’d smacked her head onto her pillow after that, with a sigh.

 

But she hadn’t stayed in bed long, nor even contemplated trying to go to sleep again. She knew Dean would be bringing the kids back to her the next day, and there was a lot in the house that needed sorting before that happened.

 

It was a good thing that Rio had gone, leaving her time and space to get her home, and herself, right. She smiled when she noticed that he’d remembered to take the snapped pieces of her board with him when he’d left. And then she tried to put him out of her mind as best she could.

 

*

 

She didn’t hear from him. Not the next day, or the one after that, and not on the one that rolled along subsequently either.

 

And Beth decided that that was a good thing too.

 

Their… rekindled _dalliance_ had been unexpected, and had involved an intense assault on not just her senses but her emotions too.

 

She’d been trying to get better at setting boundaries in her life, not historically a strong point of hers, had had to what with co-parenting past the divorce. But Rio was very much _not_ Dean, he had the ability to fill her up and overrule her best intentions, to turn her head and scatter her wits.

 

She’d realised, while trying to contemplate the situation without becoming distracted by the blazing hot bedroom memories, that Rio was the second man in her life to lie to her about health concerns. Granted, unlike Dean with his cancer whopper, Rio’d come clean to her of his own accord, and hadn’t cooked up the fake shooting to tie her further to him that she could see.

 

But her old patterns were _not_ a thing that she wanted to see repeated.

 

It was concerning. And she _ached_ to be able to see Rio objectively.

 

That night, long after the kids were in bed, tapping at the glass doors of her bedroom startled her.

 

When she went to investigate she found Rio there, something too vehement in his eyes as his hands shuffled in the pockets of his hoody.

 

Her hands went to her hips, and she was about to tell him that showing up unannounced wasn’t okay, that she could have had _company_   for god’s sake, but then he leaned in to whisper near her ear.

 

He, only just, stopped short of actual touching, which didn’t prevent his body heat from imposing upon her. She didn’t exactly mind the warmth, with her new expensive but skimpier sleepwear not quite shielding her from the cool breeze drifting in with him from outside, but being so conscious of every aspect of his form was almost painful for her.

 

And his voice, always close to raspy anyway, when he breathed, “Really can’t get you out my mind today,” had so much delicious gravel in it that all she wanted to do was squirm. It didn’t get any better when he added, “See such a pretty picture every time I close my eyes.”

 

She wanted to stand firm and send him away, or at least extract a promise not to appear without warning in the future, but she found herself saying, at least still sounding fairly unimpressed, “What picture?”

 

He pulled back to look at her, and his own face suddenly looked far too pleased, which only sparked her annoyance all over again.

 

But, too fast, his mouth was back near her ear, even closer than before.

 

“You was standing just like that, pissed as hell, telling me off ‘bout something. Then your _solution_ was to strip off and ride my face till you got less annoyed.”

 

She swallowed, and even if that hadn’t been audible in the quiet there was probably no way he wouldn’t have clocked it with his face pushed so close to her neck.

 

Whatever she’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that, though maybe she should have been prepared for it. His relentless focus on her pleasure, his apparent desire for her at her most emotionally raw and confrontational, was too damned distracting.

 

Though she was beginning to consider, contravening her reminders to keep her walls up, that maybe that wasn’t a distraction tactic of his, that a lot of it was actually genuine.

 

Rio pressed a lingering kiss to her fluttering pulse, before stepping back to gauge her demeanour.

 

He opened his mouth, like he was going to say something else, so she dragged him inside before she had to hear him _beg_ her to sit on his face or something equally well-engineered to make her burst into flames.

 

He helped her latch the door, and then she pressed him against it, kissing him with an eagerness that almost startled her.

 

He made short work of ridding her of all of her clothes, such as they were, by the time she’d just pushed his hoody off of him.

 

It was still as dizzying as ever, she noted distractedly, her entire sensorium bombarded. She wondered if that was something that could ever change. Or even if she’d really want it to.

 

Before she knew it he was lying on his back, mostly clothed though with his shoes and socks toed off, on her bed, coaxing her to drape herself over his mouth.

 

At first she just felt awkward mostly, unsure of what to do with her hands, or how to distribute her weight. But as he clamped onto her thighs tightly, and her own fingers found leverage on her headboard, she couldn’t deny that it felt _amazing_ as she writhed against his lips and tongue.

 

Glancing over her shoulder, she caught what was becoming almost a familiar sight, Rio’s arousal obvious but unattended to, his jeans still on.

 

She wriggled more forcefully against his hands, but his hold only became firmer, until she prised at one of them.

  
  
“Stop a sec!” she gasped.

 

He groaned _into_ her, but obeyed readily, letting her move away.

 

“You okay m-”

 

She didn’t even register his concerned expression, focussed on resettling fast and tossing a mellow, “Shut up,” his way.

 

Almost immediately, once she had her balance right on her knees and one elbow, she pressed her pussy back against his plump lips and he resumed licking and sucking. She reached for his zipper, then fumbled with the button of his fly as she moaned happily, trying to keep her volume down.

 

She _felt_ more than heard the noises he made when she got her hand on his cock, his jeans and underwear haphazardly thrust down his legs. He almost seemed to try to skitter away from her touch after getting lost in it a moment, like this was supposed to be just about her, but she was having none of it.

 

His almost _obsession_ with getting her off certainly had its benefits but she didn’t want him to always be in charge.

 

So she started licking gently at the head of his penis, virtually mimicking his ministrations on her clit.

 

He took to mouthing her with increased vigour when she began jacking him in earnest, and one of his fingers pushed its way inside her.

 

She figured this wasn’t a competition she was going to win, though really it wasn’t a way to lose that made her too rueful, as pleasure coursed through her body.

 

But the more arrhythmic her strokes got the more _into_ it he seemed, like her touching him as she lost control was the greatest turn on he could think of. He came not long after her, with her desperately trying to cling on to a modicum of clarity, and fighting to get more of him into her mouth.

 

He let her wriggle away from his face and she collapsed a little further down his body, her legs splayed apart across his chest, and her mouth pressed against one of his thighs.

 

After several minutes he growled, “Keep making me stare at your ass, might have to throw you down on this bed and fuck you.”

 

She giggled, he didn’t sound much less exhausted than she felt.

 

Beth tried to rise up, but didn’t get very far, mostly only succeeding in rubbing her over-sensitised clit against his skin.

 

She groaned and he quickly echoed the noise, though he sounded far more miffed, possibly at not needing to follow through on his suggestion.

 

He helped her roll off him, she found herself on her back, facing him, as he eyed her toes in a troublingly calculating manner.

 

Eventually she calmed down enough to say, “You can’t just _do_ that, you can’t come here without letting me know.”

 

Something flickered in his eyes before he said gruffly, “Yeah.” At his extremely quiet, “Sorry,” which she had no time to dwell on, he made a move to get up and go, and _that_ hadn’t been what she wanted.

 

With energy she hadn’t known she had access to, she reached out for him, and he stilled.

 

“Just _tell_ me next time?”

 

She’d meant to say ‘ask’, she knew that she had.

 

He let her pull him back down, mumbling agreement, and she snuggled against his back for a little while before he turned to look at her.

 

“So Mer’s moving to France.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Beth kept her response simple, because she already knew that, and she’d never really gotten a bead on how much Rio knew about Amber and Meredith’s relationship. She suspected he’d discerned more than he’d let on, even if he hadn’t minded about it.

 

Apprehension filled her at the thought that he might, for some ludicrous reason, be angling for an invitation to their goodbye party or, worse, about to tell her that he already had one.

 

Somewhere near the top of the list of things she absolutely could not deal with yet was the idea of Ruby and Annie seeing Rio with her. Their reactions to him pawing at her, or making terrible innuendos, while potentially partly hilarious, was the kind stuff that would have her hyperventilating if she thought too much about it.

 

“So if anyone gonna arrange private screenings, prolly gotta do it myself.”

 

Her mouth twisted in confusion.

 

He looked really far too irritated at that, considering it was entirely down to him that her thinking was stuttering along so slowly, drained of its usual fervour.

 

“Don’t ‘member whinging at me for interrupting a certain movie?”

 

And, _gosh_.

 

Going to watch that, him appearing next to her, their conversation in his office, that all felt like several lifetimes ago.

 

She grinned at him though, almost impish. “I remember.”

 

“Yeah? Still wanna, then?”

 

She nodded sleepily before yawning, arching into him cat-like.

 

“Cool, you can come by the cinema one night after we shut.”

 

“Mmmhmm.”

 

“And wear a dress.”

 

Her eyes snapped open. “You got some fetish for dressing women up I don’t know about?”

 

He snorted. “ _Nah_. Rather get you outta clothes.” One of his hands went for her right breast, and she considered knocking it away, but the soft kneading felt _nice_.

 

“But I’m taking you to a flick to get under your dress, yeah?”

 

She mused on that, only slightly scandalised, as she dropped off.

 

*

 

He was gone in the morning, she had no idea if he’d sneaked out early or left the night before once she’d fallen asleep.

 

The other pillow smelt like him though, a combination of undoubtedly expensive products mixed with his sweat, and she switched out hers for that one. Maybe not entirely because it felt fresh and cool.

 

They had to text back and forth a little to find a night that worked for her to come by and watch the film, a plan she refused to think of as a date, something that worked for both their parenting schedules.

 

Rio’d mentioned that his son was back in town, and it was clear that Marcus was staying with him at least some of the time. He discussed it so easily, and Beth forced herself not to pry for further details.

 

Once they’d settled on a day and time she figured that the conversation was done, so she was surprised when she saw that he was calling her.

 

“Yeah?”

 

He didn’t greet her properly either, launched straight in with, “Gonna sit you in the front row.”

 

“Okay.”

 

It seemed a weird thing for him to be so excited by. She wasn’t particularly fussed about being close to the screen, in fact that sometimes messed with her vision and-

 

“Plenty space for me between your legs that way.”

 

Well, _o_ _kay_.

 

Something that sounded suspiciously like a _mewl_ made its way from deep inside her.

 

“Ever come just from your clit being played with?” he asked conversationally.

 

She was fully convinced she’d lost the power of speech, but when she tried the words did in fact come out, though she almost didn’t recognise her own voice. “Not… not _with_ someone.”

 

“Interesting. Maybe we try that. Wanna keep you going for the whole movie after all.”

 

“Uh. Uh huh.”

 

“Then I’m thinking back row, yeah?”

 

“Right,” she said wildly, not quite understanding.

 

“Don’t you want me to bend you over something after that?”

 

“No, that sounds. Good.”

 

Beth took a deep breath. God, if she was searching for control here she _had_ to stop letting him get her so flustered.

 

“I’m very.” She faltered but forced herself to go on. “Turned on. And wet.” She heard him suck in a sharp breath. Feeling emboldened she added, “Do you want to come over?”

 

“ _Yeah_ ,” he choked out, but before she could feel too elated he added, “Can’t though. Tomorrow?”

 

“Mm, I’ve got an hour or so in the morning, from 10ish?”

 

“I’ll make it work.”

 

And then he talked her to orgasm, while getting himself off under her instructions, and she found she didn’t really feel too disappointed after all.

 

*

 

He popped round the next day, as promised.

 

While he thrust into her from behind, with her propped over an arm of the couch, he whispered in her ear, “If you don’t want anyone to see why don’t you come quick for me, darling,” before reaching down to touch her.

 

She hadn’t even _said_ anything to that effect, had been too overwhelmed to realise the possibility, and that just made it impossibly hotter.

 

It was hard work finding enough breath to speak but she struggled to do it, “Thought you liked it when I told you off?” as she pushed her ass back toward him.

 

Afterwards, he helped her move a couple of the heavier boxes she still had in the room, and she didn’t think much of her genial, “Thanks, babe,” at first. ‘Babe’ was her go-to, something she called Annie or Ruby or Stan, Meredith or Amber now too, and any of her children.

 

“No worries, _babe_ ,” Rio mocked back at her.

 

His response felt ridiculously hypocritical, she wasn’t sure she’d ever been able to keep track of all of his little nicknames for her.

 

Or rather, _she_ could, but that was only because she was a particularly organised and attentive person.

 

“Want me to go back to calling you Mary?” she asked, a little mean, heart in her throat. Had she somehow transgressed, crossed a line she wasn’t aware of? Was only he allowed to throw around terms of endearment like they were insignificant?

 

A mischievous thought struck her anyway, “Maybe I’ll start calling you that in front of people.” It amused her, not that they ever seemed to be together in front of anyone.

 

He grabbed her to him then, pulling her back flush against his chest, and moving her hair so he had unfettered access to an ear.

 

“Do that, I’ll start calling you much worse in public.”

 

“Oh yeah, like what?” Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like she’d ever be able to walk away from a chance to challenge him.

 

“Hmm,” he drew out, then a bunch of suggestions came all at once, breaking against each other. “Cunt, snookums, my little slut, mi amor?”

 

Beth stiffened as he let her go. She heard the sound of her front door opening and closing, him snickering softly as he left, before she’d even thought to turn around.

 

She wasn’t sure if his tittering had been aimed at himself or her own reaction, or if it had more to do with the combination of the two of them.

 

*

 

The night of their not-date finally appeared. Outside, Beth gave herself a moment to sit and think on recent events in her car, not alerting Rio to her presence immediately.

 

Things had taken on something of a whirlwind quality, and she'd had little opportunity to take stock. She was glad that she’d told him she might want to see other people, even if it hadn’t necessarily been quite what she’d meant, if she’d been using it as a sort of shorthand.

 

She did feel somewhat inexperienced and wanted to be open to opportunities. But more importantly she’d felt heartsore for so long, wasn’t eager to put herself in a position to be hurt again, and she knew she was feeling far, far too skittish to want to settle down or be enmeshed in anything too serious any time soon.

 

Beth was confident it had been important to make that clear.

 

On the other hand, perhaps it had been a truly terrible idea. It wasn’t that Rio wasn’t respecting what she’d said, but she worried he’d been trying extra hard to best her non-existent other suitors. The obscene phone calls, though exceedingly enjoyable, really might need to be curbed if she was ever going to get enough rest to actually live her life, or have _space_ in it for other possibilities.

 

There did seem to be a chance that he was finally going to kill her, and she was _almost_ sure it wouldn’t be intentional, that he hadn’t been playing the longest con in the world to murder her in the most creative way possible.

 

Once she was out of her car, she sent him a quick message, including far fewer emojis than she would with most people. Not longer after, he opened the cinema’s door to her. His grin grew and grew as he took her in.

 

She’d rebelliously toyed with ignoring the dress code he’d set, she’d considered jeans or a very tight pencil skirt, and even, for a very short time, actually renting a Wonder Woman costume.

 

But she’d settled on an old favourite, that short-ish red dress, with white polka dots, one more button than usual daringly undone over her chest, partially revealing that white lace bra.

 

She didn’t see how he could know that she’d peeled her panties off and shoved them in her purse, before stepping out of her car, but her hands smoothed over the skirt of her dress carefully.

 

“You coming?” He held a hand out to her.

 

“Yeah,” she said with a radiant smile as she linked her fingers with his and stepped inside, “think I will.”

 

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and to anyone who commented or kudo'd - you make my heart happy :)
> 
> I think writing this has actually made me hate both of them more than I thought possible, haaa - they're soo annoying!!
> 
> If you haven't seen the Iggy Pop/Tom Waits Coffee and Cigarettes vignette it's on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49tTzEifY6M
> 
> If you haven't heard Paprika Plains (16 minutes of improvisational piano, Joni singing and an orchestral arrangement... and really what more could you need): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgQNLEDAaWs
> 
> Your Sister's Sister is kind of a weird movie (not my fave Shelton) but Beth's right, support women directors!! (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1742336/)
> 
> The MC5... Lord where to start! There's a Jim Jarmusch (of Coffee and Cigarettes!) doc about Iggy Pop called Gimme Danger (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1714917/) that covers quite a bit of MC5 fun too.
> 
> PS Iggy's not actually from Detroit, though he is from Michigan, but guess what! Beth and Rio are Not That Smart.
> 
> I don't think there's really that much in the show that suggests that either or both of them would be huge movie nerds but I feel it in my bones, yknow?
> 
> This is the Back Up Plan song Rio ref'd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsUdMsistpM (def the best solo Big Boi album)


End file.
